Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

So it had turned out well for everybody. It gave her a nice feeling.

“ I ’ll go into a nunnery,” Katherine said, holding her books rigidly at her side, as they walked down the street toward Harold’s house. “I’ll retire from the world.”

Harold peered uneasily at her through his glasses. “You can’t do that,” he said. “They won’t let you do that.”

“Oh, yes, they will.” Katherine walked stiffly, looking squarely in front of her, wishing that Harold’s house was ten blocks farther on. “I’m a Catholic and I can go into a nunnery.”

“There’s no need to do that,” said Harold.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” Katherine asked. “I’m not looking for compliments. I want to know for a private reason.”

“I think you’re pretty,” Harold said. “I think you’re about the prettiest girl in school.”

“Everybody says so,” Katherine said, worrying over the “about,” but not showing it in her face. “Of course I don’t really think so, but that’s what everybody says. You don’t seem to think so, either.”

“Oh, yes,” said Harold. “Oh, yes.”

“From the way you act,” Katherine said.

“It’s hard to tell things sometimes,” Harold said, “by the way people act.”

“I love you,” Katherine said coldly.

Harold took off his glasses and rubbed them nervously with his handkerchief. “What about Charley Lynch?” he asked, working on his glasses, not looking at Katherine. “Everybody knows you and Charley Lynch …”

“Don’t you even like me?” Katherine asked stonily.

“Sure. I like you very much. But Charley Lynch …”

“I’m through with him.” Katherine’s teeth snapped as she said it. “I’ve had enough of him.”

“He’s a very nice fellow,” Harold said, putting his glasses on. “He’s the captain of the baseball team and he’s the president of the eighth grade and …”

“He doesn’t interest me,” Katherine said, “any more.”

They walked silently. Harold subtly increased his speed as they neared his house.

“I have two tickets to Loew’s for tonight,” Katherine said.

“Thanks,” said Harold. “I’ve got to study.”

“Eleanor Greenberg is giving a party on Saturday night.” Katherine subtly slowed down as she saw Harold’s house getting nearer. “I can bring anyone I want. Would you be interested?”

“My grandmother’s,” Harold said. “We’re going to my grandmother’s on Saturday. She lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She has seven cows. I go there in the summertime. I know how to milk the cows and they …”

“Thursday night,” Katherine said, speaking quickly. “My mother and father go out on Thursday night to play bridge and they don’t come home till one o’clock in the morning. I’m all alone, me and the baby, and the baby sleeps in her own room. I’m all alone,” she said in harsh invitation. “Would you like to come up and keep me company?”

Harold swallowed unhappily. He felt the blush come up over his collar, surge under his glasses. He coughed loudly, so that if Katherine noticed the blush, she’d think it came from the violence of his coughing.

“Should I slap you on the back?” Katherine asked eagerly.

“No, thank you,” Harold said clearly, his coughing gone.

“Do you want to come up Thursday night?”

“I would like to very much,” Harold said, “but my mother doesn’t let me out at night yet. She says when I’m fifteen …”

Katherine’s face set in grim lines. “I saw you in the library at eight o’clock at night, Wednesday.”

“The library’s different,” Harold said weakly. “My mother makes an exception.”

“You could tell her you were going to the library,” Katherine said. “What’s to stop you?”

Harold took a deep, miserable breath. “Every time I lie my mother knows it,” he said. “Anyway, you shouldn’t lie to your mother.”

Katherine’s lip curled with cold amusement. “You make me laugh,” she said.

They came to the entrance to the apartment house in which Harold lived, and halted.

“In the afternoons,” Katherine said, “a lot of times nobody’s home in the afternoons but me. On your way home from school you could whistle when you pass my window, my room’s in front, and I could open the window and whistle back.”

“I’m awful busy,” Harold said, noticing uneasily that Johnson, the doorman, was watching him. “I’ve got baseball practice with the Montauk A.C. every afternoon and I got to practice the violin a hour a day and I’m behind in history, there’s a lot of chapters I got to read before next month and …”

“I’ll walk home every afternoon with you,” Katherine said. “From school. You have to walk home from school, don’t you?”

Harold sighed. “We practice in the school orchestra almost every afternoon.” He stared unhappily at Johnson, who was watching him with the knowing, cynical expression of doormen who see everyone leave and everyone enter and have their own opinions of all entrances and exits. “We’re working on ‘Poet and Peasant’ and it’s very hard on the first violins and I never know what time we’ll finish and …”

“I’ll wait for you,” Katherine said, looking straight into his eyes, bitterly, not hiding anything. “I’ll sit at the girls’ entrance and I’ll wait for you.”

“Sometimes,” said Harold, “we don’t get through till five o’clock.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

Harold looked longingly at the doorway to the apartment house, heavy gilt iron and cold glass. “I’ll admit something,” he said. “I don’t like girls very much. I got a lot of other things on my mind.”

“You walk home from school with Elaine,” Katherine said. “I’ve seen you.”

“O.K.,” Harold shouted, wishing he could punch the rosy, soft face, the large, coldly accusing blue eyes, the red, quivering lips. “O.K.!” he shouted, “I walk home with Elaine! What’s it to you? I like to walk home with Elaine! Leave me alone! You’ve got Charley Lynch. He’s a big hero, he pitches for the baseball team. I couldn’t even play right field. Leave me alone!”

“I don’t want him!” Katherine shouted. “I’m not interested in Charley Lynch! I hate you!” she cried, “I hate you! I’m going to retire to a nunnery!”

“Good!” Harold said. “Very good!” He opened the door of the apartment house. Johnson watched him coldly, unmoving, knowing everything.

“Harold,” Katherine said softly, touching his arm sorrowfully, “Harold—if you happen to pass my house, whistle ‘Begin the Beguine.’ Then I’ll know it’s you. ‘Begin the Beguine,’ Harold …”

He shook her hand off, went inside. She watched him walk without looking back at her, open the elevator door, go in, press a button. The door closed finally and irrevocably behind him. The tears nearly came, but she fought them down. She looked miserably up at the fourth-story window behind which he slept.

She turned and dragged slowly down the block toward her own house. As she reached the corner, her eyes on the pavement before her, a boy spurted out and bumped her.

“Oh, excuse me,” said the boy. She looked up.

“What do you want, Charley?” she asked coldly.

Charley Lynch smiled at her, forcing it. “Isn’t it funny, my bumping into you? Actually bumping into you. I wasn’t watching where I was going, I was thinking of something else and …”

“Yeah,” said Katherine, starting briskly toward home. “Yeah.”