Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

I stopped a couple of times to let her catch up, but finally I shouted back to her, rather unfeelingly: “You’re holding me up! I can’t stand and wait for you each time. Come back by yourself!” And I sprinted off and soon left her completely behind.

When I got to the building that housed Vera’s flat, I ran up the whole six flights without a pause even at landings — but if you can’t do it at that age, then you never can do it at all — and finally, half-suffocating, I rapped on the door with tactful restraint (remembering the terrible thump Frankie had given it that first day, and trying not to repeat it).

The door opened, but there was no one standing there alongside it. Then Vera’s voice said, from in back of it: “Come on in, but keep walking straight ahead and don’t turn your head. Hold your hands over your eyes.”

I thought, for a minute, she hadn’t finished dressing yet, and wondered why she’d admitted me so quickly in that case. I heard her close the door.

Then she said: “Now you can turn. But don’t look yet.”

Obediently I turned, eyelids puckered up, exaggeratedly tight, as though normal closing in itself wasn’t a sufficient guarantee.

“Now!” she said triumphantly. “Now look.”

I opened my eyes and looked, and she was all dressed up for the party.

“How do you like me?” she asked eagerly.

It was blue, I’m almost sure. I was sure then, but I’m not sure now anymore. But I think it must have been blue. She was a blonde, and it would have been blue more likely than anything else.

“My aunt ran it up for me on her machine,” she went on breathlessly. “We bought the material at Koch’s, on a-Hunner-twenty-fifth. We only needed four yards, and we even had some leftover for a lampshade when we got through.”

Looking at it, I could well believe it. They were wearing them short and skimpy that year.

“But that isn’t all I’ve got to show you. Just wait’ll you see this!” She went hurrying into one of the other rooms, a bedroom, I guess, and then paper crackled in there. It didn’t rustle softly, as tissue paper would have; it crackled sharply, more as stiff brown wrapping paper would.

Then she came back, something swirling blurrily about her as it settled into place.

“What’ve you got to say now?” she cried.

The blue party-shift had disappeared from view, and she had glossy fur wrapped all around her, covering her everywhere, except her face and legs. She was hugging it tight to her, caressing it, luxuriating in it, in a way I can’t describe. I’d never seen a girl act that way over something inanimate before. She even tilted her head and stroked one cheek back and forth against it, over and over and over again. She made love to it, that’s about all I can say.

I don’t know what kind it was. I didn’t know anything about furs then. Years later, when it had gotten so that I could identify mink, simply by dint of constant sight-references (“Mink,” somebody would say, and then I would look at it), I realized in retrospect that whatever it had been, it hadn’t been mink. It hadn’t been that dark a shade of brown. It had been more a honey-colored kind of brown. Anyway:

“Holy mackerel!” I cried in excitement, or something equally fatuous but equally sincere, and I took a step backward in a parody of going off balance that was only partly pretense.

She kept turning from side to side, and then pivoting all the way around like a professional model, showing it to me from all angles. Her little eyebrows were arched in the cutest expression of mimic hauteur I’d ever seen then or ever have since.

“But it must have cost a pile of money,” I said anxiously. “How’d you ever get them to...?”

“Oh, it’s not all paid for,” she said facilely. “We made a down payment on it, and they let us take it home on approval. If we’re not satisfied we can return it, and they’ll give us our money back.”

“I didn’t know they did that with fur coats,” I said, impressed. But then I didn’t know much about the fur-coat traffic anyway. “It’s the cat’s meow,” I said, which was the utmost you could give to anything in commendation.

We kissed, I in ecstatic admiration, she in jubilant satisfaction at being so admired. “Don’t spoil my mouth, now,” she cautioned, but even that didn’t mar the kiss, for though she withheld her lips protectively from mine, she held my head between her two hands in affectionate pressure.

“We all set, now?” I asked.

“Just one thing more,” she said. She produced a tiny glass vial, not much thicker than a toothpick, and uncapped it. She stroked herself with it at several preordained places: at the base of her throat and in back of both ears. “Wool worth’s,” she said. “But it’s good stuff. You only get a couple of drops for twenty-five cents.”

It smelled very good to me, that was all I knew. Like a hundred different flowers ground up into a paste and leavened with honey.

“Don’t let me forget to turn out all the lights,” she said with a final look around. “They’ll raise cain if I do. It costs like the devil when you leave the electh-tricity on all night.” I remember how she said it. That was how she said it. Electh-tricity. It sounded even better than the right way.

That taken care of, we closed the door after us and went rattling down the stairs, on our way at last.

“Have you got a key for when you come home, or will you have to wake them up?” I asked her on the way down.

“My aunt gave me hers for tonight,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll be back until after we are. They went to a wake, and you know how long those things last.”

I didn’t, but I nodded knowingly, so she wouldn’t know I didn’t.

When we reached the street-entrance, she stopped short, and even seemed to shrink back within its recesses for a moment, almost as though she were afraid to come out into the open, you might say. “How’re we going down there?” she asked.

“Why, in a taxi, of course,” I answered loftily. “I wouldn’t take you any other way, dressed the way you are.”

“Well then you go out ahead and get one, and bring it back to the door with you,” she said. “I’ll wait inside here until you do. I don’t want any of the neighbors to see me standing around on the sidewalk dressed like this. Then by tomorrow, it’ll be all over the house.”

“What’s that their business?” I asked truculently, but I went ahead and did what she’d suggested.

I got one about a block away, got in, and rode back to the doorway in it. Then I got out and held the door open for Vera.

There was a moment’s wait, like when you’re gathering yourself together to make a break for it. Then Vera came rushing out headlong and scurried in. I never saw anyone get into a waiting taxi so fast. She was like a little furry animal scampering for cover.

She pushed herself all the way over into the corner of the seat, out of sight. “Put the light out,” she whispered urgently.

The closing of the door, as I got in after her, cut it off automatically. I heard her give a deep, heartfelt sigh as it went out, and thought it was probably one of contentment because we were finally on the last lap of our way to the party.

I told the driver Janet’s address, and we started off, she and I clasping hands together on the seat between us.

The lights came at us and went by like shining volleyballs rolling down a bowling alley, and it was great to be young, and to be sitting next to your girl in a hustling taxi, and to be going to a party with her. It’s never so much fun in your whole life afterward as it is that first time of all.

I remember thinking: This is only the beginning. I’ll go to other parties with Vera, like this. Every party I ever go to from now on, I’ll go to only with Vera.