by Jones, Craig
For the first time, he took his eyes off the road and looked at me. “That’s how I handle aggressive girls.” He smiled.
“Very cute. You are smug.”
“Oh, no.” He chuckled. “When it comes to smugness, you’ve got the market cornered.”
We pulled up to a small grocery store, and he went in.
I was not aware of any hidden chord in me aching to be plucked. Yet as I sat there staring through double glass—the windshield and the store window—I was determined to make him want me. He stood at the counter talking to the clerk, a middle-aged man whose face and manner were so thoroughly bland that his conversation just had to match. The man propped his arms on top of the cash register as if his listener were going to stay for a while. Frank smiled, then laughed. I saw him laugh, but I had never heard him laugh—not in the open, forthright way he seemed to be doing it now. A storekeeper, not clever Irene Rutledge, caused him to laugh. It didn’t make sense.
We took the ice cream back to his apartment. Coming up the steps, we met Gloria on her way to the incinerator. The look she gave me would have wilted a nun, but nothing short of an earthquake could have altered my course.
He spooned my ice cream into a dish and ate his from the container. Gospel music was playing on his transistor radio, and the flame of the candle seemed to flicker with the voices. The barrenness of the room, which I had found unpleasant earlier, now seemed comforting.
“How did you happen to go into Asian-African Studies?”
He shrugged. “I guess because so much of their history has yet to be made. Right now they’re the world’s underdogs, and underdogs are always interesting to watch, if just to see which way they’ll go— Look, I don’t want to bore you.”
“You’re safe until I yawn.”
He laughed. Out loud. Very good, I thought. You’re making some progress. What he didn’t know was that he could have read me the Betty Crocker cookbook, for all I cared. At least he was talking.
There was a storytelling lilt to his voice as he enumerated historical examples of underdogs turned top dogs. He talked about turnabouts in national identities, the role of chance in determining world powers. What really impressed me was that he did not sound academic or pedantic. History, it seemed, was a very personal matter to him.
“History,” he said, “has always proven one cliché: After you get what you want, you don’t want it. It’ll be interesting to see what Asia and Africa give up as they try to catch up—what they give up willingly and what they give up unknowingly. Look at Japan. Someday they’ll put all their chopsticks in museums and pick up the plastic fork.” He pressed his palms together and bowed. “Ah so. End of honorable and pompous lecture.”
“What inspired this interest in the underdog?”
He hesitated, scraping the bottom of the ice cream container. “I guess most of my life I was pretty much the underdog.”
“In what way?”
“I was raised in a small town, where your name sums you up. There were two rock-bottom families, us and the Hooples. Old Man Hoople was a drunk and eventually went to prison. None of the Hoople kids except one made it beyond the tenth grade. But we were considered respectably poor because my father always worked. Most people pitied us, but they had contempt for the Hooples. Even my mother. If any of us complained about something we didn’t have, she’d say, ‘Just be glad you ain’t a Hoople.’ She spent half the day reading the Bible, but she pulled rank on the Hooples every chance she got. She was too ignorant to see that what she was doing to them, everyone else was doing to us: clustering us under one name as if we’d all been stamped out of some inferior mold. She didn’t know there was one Hoople she could never pull rank on.” He stared wistfully into the flame of the candle between us. “Wanda Hoople,” he said softly, as though caressing the name. “I haven’t thought about her in years. Not until yesterday. It hit me when I was holding that stick out for Larry to grab. Suddenly I wished I’d done the same for Wanda.”
I began to picture Wanda Hoople as the girl with the groceries. “She drowned?” I asked.
“In a way,” he said, still looking at the candle. “Every year the high school put on a Holly Hop, a dressy Christmas dance where the girls asked the boys. I had never had a date in high school and I sure wasn’t planning on being asked. But Wanda asked me. Three days in a row she stood on this street corner in the morning when I came to school and then again in the afternoon when I went home. She lived in the opposite direction, so there was no reason for her being there. The third day we saw her, my friend and I started joking about it. I said maybe she was trying to get picked up. Her sisters were all whores, so it was easy to figure she would follow the same path. Since it had been drilled into me that the Hooples were below us, I didn’t want to admit even one of them could be different from the rest. But Wanda was different. Her skirts were always safety-pinned in the back and her ankle socks were so limp they kept sliding down into her shoes, but her face and hair—shiny as glass. The other girls in school were experimenting with make-up, but she never wore it. Her sisters wore it in layers, but she didn’t. Her face and hair were sort of a badge, something that would show everyone she was clean. Her sisters were loud too, always egging on the boys to prove they could talk dirtier. But Wanda was a mouse. That third afternoon we passed her, she called out my name. Her eyes looked terrified when she asked me to step over to the curb. There was this pause and when she finally asked me to go to the dance she didn’t look at me, she looked at the fire hydrant. For a minute I thought it was a joke, or maybe I was hoping it was. I didn’t answer her; I just stared at the rip in her coat and felt my face getting hot. Then she began to back away, very slowly. I stood there, she stopped for a second, then backed up some more. I heard my friend snickering and I felt the heat in my face, but I didn’t say a word. She gave me one last look, like I was going to kill her or something, and she ran off down the street. I could have called out to her, but I didn’t.”
“Did you ever speak to her after that?”
He shook his head. “My friend spread the word and it became a big joke for a while. I wanted to hate her for embarrassing me, but . . . I couldn’t get past that look on her face. Or those socks that went down in her shoes. Whenever we saw each other in school, we both looked the other way. I didn’t want to admit to myself I was ashamed. When she asked me that day, it must have taken every ounce of courage she had, and all she got for it was humiliation. She quit school in the middle of the twelfth grade and got married to a much older man who was a farmer. That was just about the time I was looking forward to getting out of that town and going to college.”
He lit his pipe and blew smoke rings, staring at each one as it drifted upward to build a hazy scaffolding of gray. When he spoke again, he continued in that soft, storytelling tone. But his face appeared cautious, as if he were veering away from an emotion that would interrupt him.
“The PTA gave me a one-year scholarship, something they’d never have given a Hoople. I got my picture in the paper and then I got a letter from Wanda. It said: ‘Dear Frank, I’m sorry about that day. Good luck in college and in the future. Sincerely, Wanda Lowell—parentheses Hoople.’ You know what got me? The parentheses. Reminding me as if she were forgettable. No one should ever have to feel that way.” Then in the next breath, but out of nowhere, he said: “I hate it when people just breed.”
The mixture of sadness and repugnance startled me, but I had no time to respond. He looked at me full face and said, “Why have you been showing an interest in me?”
“Because I’ve never gone out with a history major.” It was a stupid cover-up, far beneath my talents, and that tolerant smile of his made me feel more ridiculous. “I don’t know,” I mumbled.
“Well,” he said, “it’s not because I look like Clark Gable and it’s not because you’ve seen me driving around in a Cadillac. I’m not one
of the campus lovers.” He smirked. “It must be my reputation as the life of the party.”
“Don’t toy with me.”
“Don’t you toy with me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t enjoy being a diverting amusement. Although in your case . . .”
“You haven’t given me a chance to. I’m surprised you even bothered to find out my name!”
“I found out a lot this morning. Your name is Irene Abigail Rutledge. Student number: 111314. Hometown: Cedar Run. Major: English. Birth date: June 1, 1936. Two younger brothers. B.A., summa cum laude. The English Department’s model student and secretly—or semi-secretly—leched after by two esteemed members of same department.”
“What!”
“You’re very confident, probably too bright for your own good, susceptible to alcohol, aggressiveness and sarcasm, charming when made to feel secure, intolerant of carelessness (yesterday’s incident), and lovely to look at in any mood.” He paused, lowering his voice. “And perversely fond of shaking up scarecrows.”
There seemed to be tiny fish swimming through my blood: my hands felt twitchy although they were perfectly limp in my lap. “How did you find out all that?”
“I never reveal my sources.”
“You’re not a scarecrow,” I said, “but I’d like to hear how I shook you up.”
“I’m sure you would. But you have a capful of feathers already. I’ll tell you about it later—when I’m over it.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to be over it.”
He got up and brought over the wine. We drank and stared at each other. He gave in and lowered his eyes.
“I guess,” he said, “this is where I’m supposed to take you in my arms.”
“Why don’t you?”
He shook his head. “I’d rather wait. If you don’t mind.”
“Until when?”
“Next time.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“No; I’ll have quizzes to grade tomorrow night.”
“Are you backing off now?”
“Can you meet me for lunch day after tomorrow?”
We set the time and place, and I got up to leave. Before he opened the door, I stood on my toes and put my hands behind his neck.
“How about a down payment?” I said.
His body trembled and his lips quivered against mine. It was the tenderest and most awkward kiss I had ever gotten, and I hung on until he pulled away.
For the next few weeks, Wanda Hoople took up daily residence in my thoughts simply because Frank’s description of her also applied to him. Around me, he was hesitant and timid. I had to reach for his hand when we walked together or take him in my arms when I wanted a kiss. He always waited for me to let him know when I was “free” to see him. And the first time we slept together it was at my insistence.
“I’m not very experienced,” he said, looking away. It was a Saturday afternoon in August, pouring rain. He had just taken off his wet socks, and I was drying my hair with a towel.
“I don’t want experience. I want you.”
We sat down on the cushions; I leaned over and kissed the arch of his foot.
“We don’t have to do anything,” I said. “We can just lie naked together.”
I stood up and undressed. The look on Frank’s face was almost reverential; for a second, I felt like Botticelli’s Venus on the half shell. When I sat down next to him, he gently pushed my knees up under my chin, held all of me in his arms, and kissed my hair and eyes. Then he released me and stood up. He tried to hide his apprehension as he pulled off the shirt and trousers. When he stuck his thumbs into the waistband of his boxer shorts, he paused and said, “I’m not circumcised.” He said it as though this were equivalent to being a hermaphrodite.
“That’s all right,” I said. “Neither am I.”
It worked. He laughed out loud and pulled off the shorts.
“Why does it bother you?” I asked.
“I’ve heard a lot of women don’t like it. They find it repulsive.”
“I don’t see why.” I reached down and slowly pulled the foreskin back. “Look, it’s like watching something being born.”
“In more ways than one.” He was becoming erect.
The first time we made love, there on the floor, it was awkward but not embarrassingly so. We were both intent upon pleasing each other, but he was too large and I was too tight.
“Can we stop for a while?” I said. “It hurts.”
“Sure. It hurts me too.”
This surprised and pleased me. I had thought anything that hard must be invincible. Knowing that he hurt too made the pain almost pleasurable. We lay back on the cushions and had several glasses of wine.
By the time we went to sleep that night, we had made love six times. It would have been five, but just as we were drifting off, he suggested we make it an even half dozen. The whole afternoon and evening I experienced a new and wonderful feeling of abandonment: he was like a starving man, and my body was the banquet.
I returned to my apartment Sunday night riding on a balloon even Gloria couldn’t puncture.
“Well, well, look who’s back from the stud farm.”
“Is there anything to eat?”
“Why? Didn’t you have time for that?”
“No, as a matter of fact.”
She looked me up and down, as if overnight I had become defective. I made a sandwich and sat down opposite her while she lacquered her nails. Her intense concentration was an obvious ploy to irritate me.
“And what’s wrong with you?” I said.
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t understand it. I’ve known you four years and I’m just finding out I don’t know you at all.”
“Why? Because I spent two days with a man?”
“With that man.”
“What exactly is wrong with him?”
“That’s just it—you don’t see it. That’s what’s so crazy!”
“Suppose you spell it out for me.”
“Spell it! All right, he’s w-e-i-r-d. You’re way out of his c-l-a-s-s. He can’t function socially, he has no friends except those pathetic creatures he drags in, he’s always got his nose in a book, he looks like he’s never seen sunlight or decent food, or soap and water for that matter.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“His hands are filthy, or didn’t you notice?”
“That is grease on his hands because he works on his car instead of paying some half-wit mechanic to do it.”
“Well, hooray for the handyman. What gets me is you don’t mind being one of that harem.”
“There is no harem. You’re being awfully presumptuous.”
“I suppose those girls are phantoms. And the one we saw in the parking lot—I suppose that’s his sister.”
“He’s discussed all that with me. He just happens to feel sorry for them. That girl we saw is a freshman in the class he teaches. She’s from a small town and she’s having trouble adjusting. She has two horrendous roommates who—”
“Spare me the details. All I’m going to say is I thought you had better sense. I thought it would take only a few dates for the novelty to wear off. And now”—she shivered—“you’ve slept with him.”
“You bet I did,” I said to get even for her shiver. “Slept and slept and slept.”
“Irene, there’s something wrong with him. I can sense it.”
“That analysis is medieval.”
“You listen to me. ‘The kid’ has something to say.”
“ ‘The kid’ has had plenty to say.”
“Be quiet, for a change. I thought you, of all people, would keep your eyes open when you met someone. A good relationship
has to be equal, one where both parties bring something valuable to share. The scales have to balance or else someone gets cheated. And it’s always the one who had the most to offer.”
“Thank you, Ann Landers.”
“I’ve watched it happen. It happened to my mother.”
“Yes, you’ve told me.” Her father was an inveterate lecher, her mother now an alcoholic. “But I don’t plan to go down the same path. Now can we drop the subject? No one has said I’m going to marry the guy.”
*
“Famous last words.”
Gloria’s appraisal of Frank did not soften. Whenever he came into the apartment she managed to be civil, too civil; then she would retreat to the bedroom and stay there until he left. Even on the nights I had him in for dinner, she refused to join us and often went out to eat; sometimes she would call from a public phone to make sure he was gone before she got back. Aside from Gloria’s behavior, I was angered by Frank’s complacent acceptance of it.
“She loves you very much,” he said. “I never had a friend like that. You’re very lucky. I think it’s better if I don’t come down here anymore.”
“I’m not going to let her rule my life.”
“Irene, it’s her apartment, it’s her name on the lease. We can see each other at my place.”
“We can at least come here when she’s out.”
“Honey, what’s the point? She’d find out. Doing it behind her back would insult her.”
“Frank, why are you giving in to her like this?”
“Because she’s upset and hurt and I’m not.”
So far as he was concerned, it was that simple. Before he got carried away with this consideration for her, I was itching to tell him some of the things she had said behind his back. But I didn’t. No matter how magnanimous he might be, there was still room for hurt. Besides, I didn’t have to wait long for him to admit she was way out of bounds. He admitted it the day my parents paid a surprise visit.
I had spent Saturday night at Frank’s. We were just finishing a late breakfast when the bell rang. Fortunately, I had brought my own robe and had it on when Frank opened the door to my mother and father. My first emotion was murderous: their sheepish smiles told me immediately that Gloria had engineered this intrusion.