The Griffins lived in one of those venerable old brick mansions that had probably looked venerable and old the day the builders finished it. It belonged in one of those sappy Mgm British romances with Greer Garson, all noble and cold, and Ronald Coleman, all noble and hesitant.
They’d each do three or four noble things in the tedious course of the flick and then one of them would die doing something so noble it was difficult to even speak about it. Personally, I prefer Hot Rods from Hell.
There were vines up the ass (and on all sides of the house, too) and mullioned windows that bespoke even greater antiquity than the vines.
A blue Caddy convertible and a dark green Caddy sedan were in their proper garage slots. The doors were open for some reason. The drive and a half block in either direction were jammed with new and expensive cars of various kinds.
Inside, amid all their friends consoling the Griffins, there would be canap@es and sandwiches and hard liquor served by a maid who made less in a lifetime than most of the men present made in a year and who probably worked twice as hard. It was my class anger and sometimes it was fine, resenting the upper class, and sometimes it wasn’t fine, not when one of their daughters had been killed and I was petty enough to deprive them of my pity.
I would have made a good Marxist if only I could have believed in all the economic and sociological horseshit the Commies hand out.
I said a kind of prayer for the soul of poor Sara Griffin and also a kind of prayer for her parents. My older brother had died. None of us in the family, even all these years later, was ever again quite the same. The Griffins, despite the two fine and shiny cars in their open garage, would never again be quite the same, either.
No way I was going to go inside and try to talk to them with all the company they had.
Late afternoon now, autumn sky ripening into the color of grape and blood as a quarter-moon traced itself against the blue of the sky between gold-outlined clouds. There’s a special quality to the loneliness of dusk, a melancholy more brooding even than the night’s. I had always felt it as a child and felt it still.
I decided to get ready. A shower and fresh clothes would knock the mood out of me. I felt ridiculously eager to see Linda again, to be bound up in that quiet, sensible, good-girl prettiness of hers, the gray gaze so eternal and wise behind her glasses. How fitting she should be a nurse, I thought. And then smiled. It didn’t take much to tumble me down the rabbit hole of infatuation. And with Linda I sensed the tumble would be worth the risk.
One hour later, shaved, showered, smelling of Old Spice and Lucky Strikes, I stood at the door of her mother’s two-story white frame house on a narrow working-class street that showed-with its shiny new cars and all the new home repairs-how well most people were doing in the United States at the moment. There had been some violent economic ups and downs after the war, but for the most part, this was the golden age of America.
There were jobs aplenty, several years of peace following the Korean War, college money for anybody who needed it, Playboy clubs, American Bandstand, the Twist, and the Flintstones, and who the hell could ask for more than that?
She was surprised to see me. She wore a quilted robe. I could smell supper. It smelled very good. She said, “Didn’t you get my-”
I handed her the note she’d thumbtacked to my back door. “I believe you left this at my place.”
She looked flustered for only a moment and then said, over her shoulder, “Mom, I’ll be on the porch a few minutes.”
“Supper’s almost ready, honey.”
“I know, Mom. I’ll be right in.”
When the door was closed, she said, “My mom’s so sweet. She really is. But I’ll always be her little girl, emphasis on “little.””
“So how do you explain that?” I said, flicking the note she’d kept in her slender fingers.
“I was going to explain it to you in person but then when you weren’t there-”
“Chickened out, huh?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Sam.”
There was a swing on the porch. I took her hand and led her to it and we sat side by side.
“I keep trying to put it into words, Sam, and I can’t. So you’ll understand, I mean. I was so excited when we were riding around last night-I felt so much better than I had in two years-but then when I got home and went to bed and started thinking of things… I just feel foolish, Sam.
That’s the best way to put it, I guess.
Foolish that I got married so young and foolish that I’m back living at home and foolish that I can’t deal with this better. My being sick, I mean.”
“You’re not sick now.”
“No, not physically, anyway. But mentally.”
She tapped her sweet Midwestern head.
I took her hand. “We’re all foolish.”
“Oh, Sam, you don’t have to try and make me feel better. I should be doing that for myself.”
“I’m not kidding. We’re all foolish.
Foolish with ourselves, foolish with other people. And we’re too tough on ourselves about it. Life’s tough and unfair and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. So we do and say foolish things because it’s all we know how to do. You’re going through a very rough time-something most people won’t have to face in their whole lifetime-and you’re trying to adjust to it.
And you’re doing a whole hell of a lot better job of it than I would.”
She put her head on my shoulder. I liked it. I liked it a lot. The stars had started to come out. We stayed in that position and then we started to swing. Just a little bit. But the rhythm was nice and so was the cool, clean chill on the wind.
“I’m not going to give up, Linda.”
“I hope you don’t.”
“Tomorrow night we’ve got a date.”
“I’d like that.”
“And I don’t want any notes left on my door.”
“There won’t be any.”
“And I don’t want any we-now-interrupt-th-program-messages on Tv to tell me the date’s off, either. When I’m watching professional wrestling, I don’t want some announcer cutting into the match.”
She laughed softly. “None of those, either.”
“And I’ll expect you to wear that perfume you were wearing last night.”
“I promise. I don’t have any other kind of perfume, anyway.”
“And one other thing.”
“What’s that, Sam?”
I kissed her on the mouth. I started to pull back but she held me there, slender fingers against the back of my neck.
“What I was going to say,” I said finally, “was that I care about you. All of a sudden last night it just happened.”
The gray gaze got impish, amused. “As I recall, you fall in love pretty easily.”
“I’m not sure I’m falling in love. I don’t know what it is. Except every time I think of you I feel a whole lot better than I have in quite awhile. And I get this really urgent need to see you.”
She was just about to say something when the front door opened and her mom stuck her head out. I was back in eighth grade again, tense about moms, and hoping I didn’t say anything stupid or unforgivable.
“Oh, hi, Sam, haven’t seen you in a long time,” said her mom, who looked very much like her daughter. “I didn’t realize you were still here.
Would you like to stay for supper?”
“Afraid I can’t, Mrs. Dennehy. I just stopped by to say hi to Linda.”
She smiled. “Well, say hi to your folks.
I always see them at mass but that’s about all these days.”
“I’ll be right in, Mom.”
“Nice to see you again, Sam.”
“Nice to see you, too, Mrs. Dennehy.”
Linda walked me to the edge of the porch. “I wish it were tomorrow night.”
“I could pick you up later tonight.”
She took my hand and kissed me on the cheek.
“No, let me live in that “glow of expectation” they’re always talking about in those romance novels I read.”
“It’s a deal, then. We’ll both glow for the next twenty-four hours and I’ll see you right here tomorrow night.”
This time she kissed me on the mouth. Not for long. “I’d have kissed you longer but Mrs.
Sullivan is peeking out her curtain from across the street.”
“Want to put on a real show for her?”
She took my shoulders, turned me forward like a wooden soldier, and then set me marching off to my ragtop.
I honked at her as I pulled away. She waved good-bye with a girly hand. Don’t you love it when they wave good-bye with a girly hand?