Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

She knew she was attractive. There was no doubt whatever in her mind about that. She had known it even when she was a little girl who seriously studied her own face in the big ornately carved mirror in her mother’s bedroom. She would look into the glass and touch her button nose and the edges of her eyes, the thick-fringed lashes, the long silken brown hair. Grownups enjoyed looking at her, Julia Stark knew that, too. She would play games with her own childish beauty. She would sometimes get all messy on purpose, so that she could come in with smudges on her face and on her clothes, the incongruous grime heightening the visual impact of her delicately boned face and body. When she matured, providence was again on her side. At first, she was terribly frightened by the sudden pucker of her chest. She would stare at her tentative buds in the big mirror and touch them exploringly, frightened to death, fascinated too, fascinated the way she was with the steady, slow growth of the four-o’clocks she’d planted in her mother’s garden. The fear and fascination gave way to pleasure and gratitude. She would examine herself critically now, pulling back her shoulders and marveling at the new ripe slope of her chest. And sometimes at night in the privacy of her bed, she would seize herself in delight and whisper fervent thanks for her bounty. The other girls in the sixth grade were not quite as enthusiastically grateful for the blossoming flower in their midst. She was pretty enough to begin with. She did not need any unnecessary and totally unfair embellishments. The hardest thing Julia had to bear was their hidden envy and their open scorn. She didn’t mind the stares of the boys. She clouted one when he tried to touch her, but she connected no thoughts of sexuality to the boy’s understandable curiosity. Her breasts were simply a new part of her body, and she didn’t like anyone touching her, no matter how scientifically probing the attitude. She asked her mother to take her into Talmadge to Mr. Kannen’s clothing store, and her mother helped her in picking out a suitable brassière. She could still remember it. It had been white, and made of cotton, and she found it difficult reaching behind her back to clasp and unclasp it.

She knew she was attractive, yes. This was one of the indisputable and governing facts in Julia’s life. She used her beauty unconsciously, the way most beautiful women do, but she used it nonetheless. She learned in her teens that a pretty girl can get away with a great many more things than her unattractive counterpart. But she never used her good looks flagrantly, never played the outrageous flirt — until she met Arthur Regan. With other boys, she maintained a sort of cool dignity that was sometimes maddening. She was, quite naturally, one of the most popular girls at Talmadge High, and from the time she was sixteen and permitted to date, she never lacked male company on any weekend night. There was about Julia a touch of recklessness, a tinge of heresy, an abandon beneath that pristine exterior, which promised adventure. When she chose to kiss a boy — and she did not choose to very often — she kissed him with an ardor that curled his toes. This, to Julia Stark, was another of the facts of life. If you wanted to kiss someone, you kissed him because you enjoyed it, and you kissed him as if you were enjoying it. Otherwise, you didn’t kiss him at all. She never felt guilty about leaving a date on her doorstep with a handshake and a smile. She felt she owed nothing more than her undoubtedly pleasant company to anyone who took her out. Whatever else they reaped in the way of residual benefits was something Julia and Julia alone would decide. If anyone got silly about it, if any boy decided he would try to wrestle his way into her favor, Julia instantly hit him. She found that an openhanded slap had a remarkably quieting effect. Most boys would not risk Julia’s wrath. They dated her because she was really very pleasant to be with, and to be seen with. And if she chose not to kiss them, there was always the hope — and hope had surely nurtured less ambitious projects — that one day, oh perhaps one day, Julia would offer her mouth, one day Julia would allow her blouse to be opened, her skirt to be pulled back, one day Julia...

The hopes were mostly the stuff of which dreams are made.

Kiss you she would, yes, they knew that. Reports of her kisses were passed around like international secrets among the chosen few. Her lips, they said, did you ever feel softer lips? Her mouth, they said, she kissed you with all of her mouth. Her teeth, they said, she nibbles at your lips, she nibbles at your tongue, she drives you nuts, they said. But more than that they could not discuss, because there never was more than that. The boys of Talmadge had run headlong into another of Julia’s incontrovertible facts of life. She was not easy, and she was not promiscuous, and she knew without the slightest hesitation or doubt that the man who married her would be the first and only man ever to possess her.

Arthur Regan, she knew from the very beginning, was destined to become a very important fact in her life. There was nothing outstanding about Arthur, it seemed, except his artistic ability. He was, in his sophomore year, the art editor of the school magazine, and a cartoonist for the school paper. He had also had several cartoons accepted for publication by the Talmadge Courier , the town’s bona fide newspaper, and he was something of a celebrity at school, well aware of his own talents and calmly accepting everyone’s prediction that he would one day really amount to something. He was not a good-looking boy at all. Julia had certainly dated handsomer boys. His hair was sandy-colored and straight. He seemed to wear a perpetual frown over his mud-colored eyes, and his nose was a little too large for his narrow face. But he fascinated Julia the moment she laid eyes on him, and for the first time in her life she actively began to plan the seduction of a male animal.

The word “seduction,” of course, never once entered her mind. Nor would she even admit to herself that she was planning anything at all for the art editor of the school magazine. She preferred to believe that whatever was happening was happening by circumstance and chance alone. And after a while, these carefully schemed accidents became more of Julia’s “facts,” and she forgot completely that she had lain awake nights thinking up new plots to insure the ensnarement of young Arthur.

Their preliminary skirmishes served only to make Arthur more aware of her. He was not a good-looking boy, and perhaps he knew it, but his renown had brought with it an attitude of extreme confidence, so that he walked and talked and sounded and felt as if he were handsome, as if those who preferred believing instead the evidence of their own eyes were surely candidates for the booby hatch. He knew that Julia Stark was possibly the prettiest girl in that entire high school, and he knew that for some absurdly fantastic reason she was making a big play for him. And whereas he knew for certain that he was one day going places, the only place he wanted to be right now was alone with Julia.

Like two chess players who had finally decided on their opening moves for the game, after studying the board and each other for a long time, Julia and Arthur came to grips. Pawn to King’s four, Knight to King’s Bishop three, the pieces stared at each other in perfect symmetry across the board — the opening play they had independently and simultaneously chosen was Arthur’s ability as an artist.

“I hear you draw pretty well,” Julia said.

“I do,” Arthur admitted.

“Would you like to draw me sometime?”

“Why should I?”

“I just thought you might like to.”

“Well, maybe,” Arthur said cautiously.