Jolly (18 page)

“Huh? Oh, no.” He watched the slender fingers clasp and unclasp. “No, I haven’t—I have not.” He followed the brown skin up her arm to her bare shoulder.

“Do you live here? In Nogales, I mean,” he said.

She tilted her head and viewed him quizzically.

“Is this town your home?” he said.

“No.” Her eyes returned to her hands. “My home is Guadalajara, except this half year.”

“I know that song,” Jolly said. “‘Guadalajara, Guadalajara, la la la la la,’” he sang, “or something like that.” She laughed, and it rose from deep in her throat and spilled upwards. She wore a pale green dress of some light material that crossed behind her neck leaving her back bare to the waist.

Jolly moved his chair closer. He touched her shoulder because the brown skin there needed touching. “How old are you, Dolores?” he asked and traced the curve of her shoulder with one finger. Her skin twitched involuntarily beneath his finger so he stopped. He placed the flat of his hand on her back. “How many years are you?”

Her hair was dark brown, not black like the others. It was pulled back from her face and clasped simply in back. “I have eighteen years.” She raised her chin, and her eyes bespoke brief defiance.

Jolly lifted her hair from off her neck and watched it stream over his hand. “So am I—nearly,” he said. With his other hand he touched hers on the table. “You have pretty hands.”

She looked at the backs of her hands as if she were about to argue the point. Instead she smiled a very small bit at the corners of her mouth. “Thank you,” she said.

His knee touched hers. He expected hers to draw back quickly, but instead he felt her leg press closer to his. She leaned nearer over the corner of the table, and the light material swung forward an inch from her breasts. Jolly could see that it was unlikely she wore anything beneath the dress. Her brown skin rose glowing and round.

He raised his eyes and met hers. To hide his blush he pulled her towards him, and with his lips at her neck just below her ear he closed his eyes and said, “You’re lovely.”

He felt her move against him. Then he felt her remove her hand from his on the table. As the hand slid heavily up the inside of his thigh to where he was urgent, she said clearly, “Forky me, three dollar.”

The warmth went out of the moment as suddenly as if winter had struck in May. Jolly heard the sounds of the club return, and when he opened his eyes, over her shoulder he saw bare wooden tables and beer bottles and young men mauling black-haired girls in two’s and three’s.

They moved their heads back at the same time so that when their eyes met, their faces were close. Jolly studied her eyes but saw nothing except a chill that matched the room. She did not speak again but waited for his response. Her eyes were lighter brown, like her hair. And then Jolly saw the gold flecks in her eyes that caught the light and radiated from the black iris.

He moved back in his chair and expelled his breath. “OK,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She stood and without looking back strode across the room, her head high, toward the blue door. Jolly heard Guppy call something to him, but he did not answer. He walked behind Dolores and wondered, incongruously, that her waist was thicker than it should have been.

Before they could pass through the blue door at the corner of the room, they had to squeeze by two round girls in peasant blouses and full black skirts who stood in the open door of the men’s room giggling and chattering with two university boys who were attempting to drown a black beetle with urine in the trough that ran along the floor. Once through the blue door, they walked down a long corridor, open to the sky above, but lined on either side with rooms, each with its own door and a single window. From some of the windows no light shone, and from some came the short sounds of laughter.

Near the end of the corridor, Dolores unlocked a door and entered ahead of Jolly. He heard her fumble in the dark a moment, then a match flared, and she lighted four candles in an elaborate tin candelabrum. He stood just inside the door and saw the small room pale into half-light. The window was covered with orange-flowered chintz as was the opening to what must have been a closet. In one corner there was a sink, and beneath it stood a white pitcher in a porcelain bowl. In another corner, on a spindly three-legged table, stood an icon, its garish colors faintly illuminated by a single candle burning low in a red glass holder. He looked away from the corner quickly, but not before the candle, fed by new air in the room, sputtered upward and lighted the word
Inri
near the top of the small gold cross.

“Take off your clothes.” Dolores spoke deliberately as she unfastened the side of her dress.

The only other pieces of furniture in the room were a blond wooden dresser on which stood the candelabrum, one straight chair, and a double bed made up with no covers other than a bare sheet and two pillows.

Jolly turned from the girl and undressed hurriedly, down to his shorts. He wondered if it would be all right to leave his socks on. He pondered that problem as he hung his shirt and pants over the chair, being careful that the things did not spill from the pockets. Behind him he heard the girl moving swiftly. “Light?” she said.

“What?”

“Do you wish light? The candles I can leave on or off?” she said.

“Oh. OK, they’re OK.”

“Come,” she said.

He turned to see her lie on the bed and adjust a pillow beneath her head, her legs spread brownly on the white sheets. His eyes followed the curves of her body. And then he saw.

“Won’t it—won’t this harm it?”

“What?” she asked. Her voice was sharp.

“I said, is it all right—to do this when you’re—when you’re that way?” He pointed vaguely with his hand.

She twisted impatiently beneath his gaze.

“Hurry,”
she said, and her voice had turned cold like the night.

THE STATUE of Teddy Roosevelt and his pawing steed exactly matched the gray-green of the aspens when the four boys returned to Cortez as the sun was making its first pale overtures against the clouds in the east. The trip home had been fast and silent except for Guppy’s occasional comments on the conditions in Nogales. Jolly watched sleepily as the car passed the first familiar houses and motels that signaled the edge of town. The old courthouse seemed snug and comfortable squatted among its aspens in the plaza. The stores, which would not open for four hours yet, looked fresher, somehow, possibly because of the early light.

“Where to first?” said Guppy.

“Let’s get some breakfast somewhere,” said Eddie.

“God, my mouth feels like the floor of a stable.”

“It’s too early to go home, anyway.”

“Remember, Al, we stayed with you last night—and played poker.”

“Yeh, I’ll remember. Christ, I hope I get some sleep today before my folks get back.”

“You gotta work today, Jolly?”

Jolly yawned. “Nope. All I want is some breakfast and a shower and a bed.”

“A shower won’t help what you got now,” offered Guppy. “Penicillin’s what you need.”

A while later, after breakfast at Freddy’s, Guppy drove the others to their homes. He stopped last before Jolly’s house. Jolly viewed the rocky walk that led between the two pines. “I see the lilacs are starting,” he said.

“What?” said Guppy.

“Nothing.” He turned to the big shaggy-haired boy beside him. “Thanks, Guppy—for letting me go along.”

“That’s OK.” Guppy rolled down the window on his side. “Jolly—was it—did ya like it and all?”

“Yeh, sure. Sure I liked it OK. Why?”

Guppy flushed. He put one huge hand on Jolly’s shoulder. “Oh, nothin’,” he said. “It’s just that you’re a couple a years younger than us guys and all. You were sorta quiet and everything.” He watched Jolly’s face for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn’t a—maybe you—Oh, hell, ferget it,” he concluded and returned his hand to the wheel. He revved the motor.

“So long, Hero,” Jolly said. He left the car and heard it squeal and then roar away behind him as he climbed the path to his house.

“Well, you’re up bright and early,” his mother said when he opened the kitchen door. “You boys have a nice time?”

“Hi. Yeh, we had a swell time.” He was relieved by the sound of her voice.

“What’d you-all do? Just play cards? I hope you weren’t really gambling.”

“Just matches, Mom.” He walked to the bathroom door. “Jeez, I need a bath.”

“You had breakfast?”

“Yeh. We went out to Freddy’s. And, Mother, I had a
good
breakfast.” He grinned and then closed the door.

She waited until she heard the water stop running. As she worked about the kitchen she talked, generally, to the bathroom door. “Listen, Jolly-Bo. I’m going to walk downtown before the heat and do a little shopping, you hear?”

“OK.”

“And then I’m going on to my missionary circle. I may not be back before lunch, but they’s cold ham and Jello in the icebox. You eat lunch before you go galavantin’ off somewhere. Hear?”

He splashed from the bathroom.

Mattawilde Osment went to the bedroom to gather her hat and purse. She lifted the curtain at the window in order to calculate the mood of the weather. “Reckon I’d better take it,” she said to herself and reached her old red umbrella from the closet. Back in the kitchen she said “I’m going now, Jolly-Bo. Now listen, if it rains, you go around and see the windows are closed.” She waited a moment for an answer from the bathroom. “You asleep in there?”

“No. I heard you.”

“Well, don’t go to sleep in there, though Lord knows you look like you could stand some. Go to bed if you want to.”

“OK. Goodbye, Mom.”

Jolly lay in the hot bath water a long time, going over every portion of the night before, only now, in the light of a new day, the events, the talk, the black-haired girls and the brown-haired one all rolled together with the brassy music, the guitars, the ribald lights, the Carta Blanca and the chintz-curtained room at the end of a corridor beyond a blue door. He was surprised to realize that all he remembered about the first woman he had ever seen totally naked (besides the dancer) was her brown belly rising round, starting high at her waist. He closed his eyes better to focus the picture, and all he saw was her navel protruding, tight. Without reason his mind switched to the picture of a trocar, delving deep into the brown flesh, making another navel, one to which would be attached a plastic button. That would be a good new game; Button, button, who’s got the new Bellybutton. Jolly felt the muscles in his stomach jerk. He opened his eyes with a start and stared for a long time up at the yellow ceiling, pulling back the pieces into reality.

He sat forward and pulled the chain and watched as the soapy water formed a tiny whirlpool over the drain. He stepped from the tub and dried himself, then separated his shirt and shorts and socks for the dirty clothes basket, and carrying his pants and shoes, he walked through the kitchen, through the dining room, into the bedroom.

Covered by only a sheet, he closed his eyes and slept a long, dreamless sleep.

In the early afternoon Jolly awoke to the sound of rain spattering in loud, seldom drops. “Mom, you here?” he called.

Hearing no answer, he stretched, then threw back the sheet, and with his feet on the floor, he sat a moment and rubbed his eyes, heavy with sleep. He checked the windows and stood by one to watch the dark spots of wet form gradually on the cement steps in front of the house. When the cement was thoroughly darkened, he turned from the window to the kitchen and rummaged in the refrigerator.

I’ll just walk out there, he planned. It’s not that far. I’ll just walk out there and see. If it rains, well, it rains.

Fifteen minutes later, dressed in Levis and a Levi jacket, he crossed the alley and the oak-wooded lot behind his house and climbed the short hill to a road that would be the quickest way. The road was not yet particularly muddy. It would be in another hour, though, even with the slow rain. He figured to be there before an hour, anyway.

Once through the stone pillars, Jolly left the road and walked parallel to it, curving when it curved, hurrying across the narrow arteries that joined the main road, until he reached the one marked Paseo Redondo. From there he cut directly through the woods, his feet silent on the thickness of damp needles.

He wasn’t sure what he would do when he got there. Likely, he would do nothing, he thought, except wait and watch. When the house came into sight, the color of the bark of the pines, he stopped. Then he circled until he had a fairly clear view of the front and the Van Dearens’ green sedan. The house huddled in on itself, shedding rain in little streams from its peaked roof. Its face told nothing.

The Blue Goose wasn’t there, at least. That was some comfort.

Jolly sat beneath a big pine that shielded him some from the rain. He lighted a cigarette and watched. He watched a long time, expecting to see he knew not what. Maybe she wasn’t even there. Maybe she and Luke were away somewhere at that very moment. He drew himself tighter into his jacket and listened to the rain that sounded like faint laughter spilling.

The steady rain grew colder. But where would they go on an afternoon like this? Luke’s mind functioned in terms of darkness. A rainy afternoon would mean nothing more to him than a rainy afternoon. Jolly grew a little stiff from sitting in one place so long and staring at the house. It took him several moments to realize that Mr. Van Dearen had just hurried from the house, his collar turned up, and into his car. Jolly sat forward to watch the green car back up and then point slowly down the driveway to the road. Through open spots in the woods he saw it move along the road, away from the house.

He stood and arched his back. He was more stiff than he should have been. He had sat longer than he thought. He moved among the trees, walking closer to the house. Finally, at the edge of the Van Dearens’ lot from which the underbrush had been cleared, he made up his mind. I can just say I was out for a walk and got caught in the rain, he decided.

He touched the side of the great granite boulder on which she sat and laughed—how long ago?—six days, it was. The board steps of the porch, saturated with rain, made no sound under his feet. He moved across the wide porch and knocked at the door.