But the world had not completely caught up with his way of thinking. Her mother was unchanged. She would have been appalled if she’d known. And so would many others. Even among some of her so-called liberated friends abortion was in many ways still a dirty word.
She looked down at the luncheon tray in front of her. The roast beef had a pale anemic hospital look about it. Tentatively she began to cut the rubbery meat, then put down her knife and fork in disgust. She really wasn’t hungry anyway.
She looked out the window at the bright California day. It was not a bit like Port Clare in January. Remembering one snowy day with the freezing cold wind coming off the Sound as she walked down the road to catch the bus to school, she actually shivered. The snow had fallen the night before and felt crisp and clean under her galoshes as she made her way down the sidewalk. The plows had been out all night and the snow was banked neatly on the sides of the road. She climbed over a bank and came down on the road where the snow was turning brown and dirty from the passing cars. In the distance the bus came into view.
It seemed like such a long time ago. Almost another age. And in a way it was.
Chapter 2
“You almost always die,” the man said.
She turned from the bus window and looked at him. For the three months she had been taking this bus to Port Clare Central High the man had been in the seat next to her. This was the first time he had ever spoken. “Yes,” she said, her eyes unexpectedly filling with tears.
He stared past her out the window. “The snow. Why is it always the damn snow?” he asked, speaking to no one.
“I’m going to die,” he went on matter-of-factly.
“My father died,” she said.
For the first time he focused on her. A shade of embarrassment crept into his voice. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t realize I was talking aloud.”
“It’s all right.”
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I’m not crying,” she said defiantly.
“Of course,” he said quickly.
She felt a strange pain in her stomach. She realized with a sense of shame that she hadn’t thought about her father for a long time. In a way it had been almost too easy for her stepfather to push him from her mind.
The man’s face seemed thin and pinched. “Do you go to Central?”
“Yes.”
“What term?”
“Sophomore.”
“You look older,” he said. “I would have thought you were a senior.”
A faint flush came over his pale skin. “I hope I—I mean—I don’t want to offend. I just don’t know too much about young girls.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “People are always taking me for older.”
He smiled, recognizing that he had pleased her. “Forgive me anyway,” he said. “I’m Walter Thornton.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re that—?”
He didn’t allow her to finish. “I’m that Walter Thornton,” he said quickly.
“But”—she hesitated—“you ride the bus every morning.”
He laughed. “You know a better way to get to the station?”
“But you have two plays and a movie on Broadway at the same time.”
“I also don’t drive.” He looked at her. “How do you know so much about me?” he asked curiously.
“Everybody knows about you,” she said.
“Not high school kids. They know about actors, not writers.”
“I’m going to be a writer,” she said.
“Why not an actress?” He was curious. “You’re beautiful enough.”
She blushed. “Why? Is it wrong for me to want to be a writer?”
“No,” he said. “It’s just unusual. Most girls want to go to Hollywood and become a movie star.”
“Maybe I’ll do that too,” she said thoughtfully.
The bus began to slow down. They were at the railroad station. He got to his feet and smiled at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll talk some more.”
“Okay,” she said. Through the window she watched the tall thin figure in the flapping raincoat disappear into the waiting 8:07 New York express.
Her boyfriend, Bernie Murphy, was waiting for her in front of the school. “Do you know who I met on the bus today?” she asked excitedly. “Walter Thornton! Imagine that? I’ve been sitting next to him every day for three months and I didn’t even know who he was.”
“Who’s Walter Thornton?” Bernie asked.
“Who’s Mickey Mantle?” she retorted with disgust.
***
When JeriLee was ten years old two things happened that were to change her life. The first was that her mother remarried. The second was that she wrote a story which she then produced as a play on the final day of school.
She called it “A Gory Fairy Tale.” And it was. For by the time the curtain fell everyone on stage had died.
As writer, producer and director, she cast herself in the only dual role, that of the cook who had been put to death by the king and then risen from the grave as a witch who came back for revenge.
JeriLee loved the feeling of power. During that brief period she was the most important girl in the fifth grade.
For the first time she could feel the impact she had on other people and instinctively she recognized that the words she had written were the source of the heady sense of power.
Later, clutching her award for creative writing, her face still smudged with the black soot makeup of the witch, she went to her mother and announced her decision.
“I’m going to be a writer, Mommy.”
Her mother, who was sitting with Mr. Randall of the Farmer’s Bank, smiled vaguely. She had scarcely watched the performance. She was too busy thinking about John Randall’s proposal the previous night. “That’s nice, dear,” she said. “But I thought you wanted to be an actress.”
“I did,” JeriLee answered. “But I changed my mind.”
“I thought you looked beautiful on the stage,” her mother said. “Didn’t you, John?”
“She was the most beautiful girl there,” John Randall agreed heartily.
JeriLee stared at them. They had to be blind. The whole point of the makeup was to make her look like an ugly witch. “My makeup was horrible,” she said.
Her mother smiled reassuringly. “Don’t you worry, dear,” she said. “We thought you looked beautiful.”
Later they went to dinner at the Port Clare Inn, a candlelit restaurant which overlooked the Sound.
“We have something very important to tell you, dear,” her mother began over dessert.
JeriLee scarcely looked at her. She was too busy watching the drunken couple who were openly fondling each other at the corner table.
“JeriLee!” her mother said sharply.
JeriLee looked at her mother.
“I said we had something very important to tell you.”
She became the dutiful child. “Yes, Mother.”
Her mother spoke awkwardly. “Ever since your father died… well, you know how difficult it has been for me to take care of you and your brother while going to work in the bank every day.”
JeriLee was silent. She was beginning to understand. But she didn’t know whether she liked what was coming.
Her mother glanced at Mr. Randall for support. He nodded reassuringly. Under the table her hand sought his. “We thought it would be nice if the two of you had a father again,” she said, then added quickly, “Bobby is almost six years old now and a boy should have a father to do things with. You know, ballgames, fishing, things like that.”
JeriLee looked first at her mother, then at Mr. Randall. “You mean you want to marry him?” There was a note of disbelief in her voice. Mr. Randall and her father were nothing alike. Her father had always been laughing and full of fun, while Mr. Randall almost never smiled.
Her mother fell silent.
For the first time Mr. Randall spoke. Soothingly, as if he were talking to
a client of the bank who had been questioning an error on his monthly statement. “I’d make a very good father to the two of you. You’re a very lovely girl and I like your brother very much.”
“Don’t you like me too?” she asked with a child’s unerring logic.
“Of course I do,” he answered quickly. “I thought I made that quite clear.”
“You didn’t say it.”
“JeriLee!” Her mother’s voice was sharp again. “You have no right to speak like that to Mr. Randall.”
“It’s all right, Veronica,” he said soothingly. “I like you very much, JeriLee, and I would be proud if you would have me as your father.”
JeriLee looked into his eyes and for the first time saw the hidden warmth and kindness. She responded immediately but didn’t know what to say.
“I know I can never take the place of your real father but I love your mother and will be very good to all of you,” he said earnestly.
JeriLee smiled suddenly. “Can I be the flower girl at the wedding?”
John Randall laughed in relief. “You can be anything you want,” he said, covering her mother’s hand with his. “Except the bride.”
A year after they were married John Randall formally adopted the two children and her name became JeriLee Randall. A curious sadness came over her the first time she wrote her new name. Now there would be almost nothing left to remind her of her father. Bobby, who had never really known him, had already forgotten. And she wondered if, in time, she would too.
Chapter 3
John Randall looked over the top of his New York Times as his daughter came to the breakfast table. She came quickly around the table and kissed him on the cheek. He caught a quick scent of perfume as she went to her chair.
Her voice was bright with suppressed excitement. “Good morning, Daddy.”
He smiled, looking at her. He was genuinely fond of her. None of the individual features that made up her face were beautiful. Her nose was perhaps a trifle too long, her mouth a bit too wide, her dark blue eyes over high cheekbones too large for the size of her face, but somehow together they had an incredible effect. Once you looked at her you could never forget her. She was beautiful.
He could see that this morning she had taken extra care with her appearance. Her hair looked even silkier than usual and her skin was shining clean. He was glad that she didn’t use makeup as so many of the girls did nowadays. “Something must be happening,” he said.
She looked at him over the bottle of milk she was pouring on her cornflakes. “What, Daddy?”
“I said something’s going on.”
“Nothing special.”
“Come on now,” he said gently. “Has a new boy come into the class?”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Nothing like that.”
“Still Bernie?”
She blushed but didn’t answer.
“There has to be something.”
“Daddy,” she said reproachfully, “why does it always have to be a boy?”
“Because you’re a girl.”
“It’s nothing like that,” she said. “But I did meet someone yesterday. On the bus.”
“On the bus?” he echoed, puzzled.
She nodded. “He sat down yesterday right next to me. Imagine that, Daddy? For three months he’s been sitting next to me and I never knew who he was.”
“He?” Now he was really puzzled. “Who?”
“Walter Thornton,” she said. “I always thought he was only here for the summer. I never knew he lived here all the time.”
“Walter Thornton?” he asked, a note of disapproval in his voice.
“Yes. America’s greatest writer.”
The disapproval in his voice became more apparent. “But he’s a communist.”
“Who said so?” she challenged.
“Senator McCarthy, more than two years ago. He took the Fifth before the committee. And everybody knows what that means. When the news came out, the bank seriously considered asking him to take his business somewhere else.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “We felt sorry for him, I guess. After all, we are the only bank in town and it would be inconvenient to make him go out of town.”
JeriLee had heard enough talk about the banking business to absorb an idea of how it was run. “Did he maintain heavy balances?” she asked shrewdly.
He flushed. She had put her finger on it. When all was said and done, the man probably had greater cash balances than any other client of the bank. The weekly income was fantastic. “Yes,” he admitted.
Having made her point, she was silent.
He stared at her. She was not like other girls or even other women he had known. Certainly her mother did not have the same ability to cut through to the bone the way she did. In many ways she seemed to think like a man. Still there was nothing about her that was not female.
“What’s he like?” he asked curiously.
“What’s who like?” Veronica asked, bringing the eggs and bacon from the kitchen.
“Walter Thornton. JeriLee met him on the bus yesterday.”
“Oh, him? I read in the papers he’s going through a divorce.” She went to the dining-room door and called up the stars, “Bobby! You come right down and have your breakfast. Otherwise you’ll be late for school.”
Bobby’s voice echoed faintly through the door. “It’s not my fault, Mom. JeriLee was hogging the bathroom all morning.”
Veronica came back into the room and sat down at the table. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him. Every day he comes up with another excuse.”
John looked across the table at his daughter and smiled. She was blushing. “Don’t get upset,” he said to his wife. “Things like that happen sometimes. I can always drop him off on my way to the bank.”
Veronica turned to her daughter. “What is he like?” she asked. “Mr. Smith at the market says that whenever Mrs. Thornton came in she smelled of liquor. At times he even suspected she might be drunk. They all felt sorry for him.”
JeriLee shrugged her shoulders. “He seems very nice. Quiet. You wouldn’t think he is who he is.”
“Did you tell him you wanted to be a writer?” her mother asked.
JeriLee nodded.
“What did he say?”
“He thought it as nice. He was very polite.
“Maybe he will look at some of your things. He could give you advice.”
“Oh, Mother!” JeriLee exclaimed. “A man like that wouldn’t bother reading the work of a schoolkid.”
“I don’t know, you never—”
“I don’t think she should trouble him,” John interrupted. “JeriLee’s right. The man is a professional. It would be very unfair to ask him. He’s probably got more important things to worry about.”
“But—” Veronica began.
Again he interrupted. “Besides he’s not exactly the kind of person JeriLee should be associated with. He’s very different than us. He has different standards. Everyone knows that communists have very loose morals.”
“He’s a communist?” Veronica asked.
John nodded. “Mr. Carson says that the bank has to be very careful in our dealings with him. We don’t want anyone to get the wrong ideas about us.”
Mr. Carson was president of the bank, the leading Republican and the most important man in Port Clare. For the past twenty years he had personally selected the mayor of the town, although he himself was too modest to want the office for himself.
Veronica was impressed. “Well, if Mr. Carson thinks so—”
“I think that’s unfair!” JeriLee burst out. “There are many people who think that Senator McCarthy was worse than the communists.”
“Senator McCarthy is a real American. He was the only one standing between us and the communists. The way Truman was acting, we were lucky if we didn’t give the whole country away.” John’s voice was positive.
“Your father is right, dear,”
Veronica said. “The less you have to do with him the better.”
Suddenly JeriLee found herself near tears. “I’m not doing anything with him, Mother. He just sits in the seat next to me on the bus.”
“That’s all right, JeriLee.” Her mother’s voice was soothing. “Just be careful you don’t let people see you talking too much to him.”
Bobby came tearing into the room, pulled his chair to the table and began helping himself to eggs and bacon.
“What’s the matter?” Veronica asked sharply. “Have you forgotten your manners? Not even a ‘good morning’?”
“Good morning,” Bobby grumbled, his mouth full. He looked at JeriLee. “It’s all her fault anyway. If she didn’t spend so much time in the bathroom I wouldn’t be late.”
“Take it easy,” John said. “I’ll drop you off at school.”
Bobby smiled triumphantly at JeriLee. “Gee, Dad, thanks.”
For a brief moment JeriLee had a twinge of hatred for her brother and the male kinship he had with their father. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. After all, she was a girl. But that did not make it right. It wasn’t reason enough to make her feel isolated from their world.
She rose from the table. “I’ll be going now.”
“All right, dear,” her mother said, beginning to gather the dishes.
She went around the table and dutifully kissed her mother and father. Then she picked up her schoolbooks, went out into the street and began walking toward the bus stop.
Mr. Thornton wasn’t on the bus that morning, nor the following morning or the morning after that. A few days later she read that he had gone to Hollywood for the filming of his latest picture, and that he was then going on to London, where one of his plays was being produced. It wasn’t until the following summer that, the day after she turned sixteen, she saw him again. By that time she was no longer a girl. She was a woman.
***
Physically she had matured long before. Her breasts had begun developing soon after she was eleven. By the time she was twelve she started having her periods. At fifteen there were still traces of baby fat in her face but during that winter it disappeared, leaving her cheeks with long interesting planes. She noticed the thickening of the hair under her arms and around her pubis. Like all the girls, she began shaving under her arms and using a deodorant. But she also became aware of other changes that had taken place within her.
The Lonely Lady Page 2