The Lonely Lady (3 page)

She looked at him over the bottle of milk she was pouring on her cornflakes. “What, Daddy?”

“I said something’s going on.”

“Nothing special.”

“Come on now,” he said gently. “Has a new boy come into the class?”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Nothing like that.”

“Still Bernie?”

She blushed but didn’t answer.

“There has to be something.”

“Daddy,” she said reproachfully, “why does it always have to be a boy?”

“Because you’re a girl.”

“It’s nothing like that,” she said. “But I did meet someone yesterday. On the bus.”

“On the bus?” he echoed, puzzled.

She nodded. “He sat down yesterday right next to me. Imagine that, Daddy? For three months he’s been sitting next to me and I never knew who he was.”

“He?” Now he was really puzzled. “Who?”

“Walter Thornton,” she said. “I always thought he was only here for the summer. I never knew he lived here all the time.”

“Walter Thornton?” he asked, a note of disapproval in his voice.

“Yes. America’s greatest writer.”

The disapproval in his voice became more apparent. “But he’s a communist.”

“Who said so?” she challenged.

“Senator McCarthy, more than two years ago. He took the Fifth before the committee. And everybody knows what that means. When the news came out, the bank seriously considered asking him to take his business somewhere else.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “We felt sorry for him, I guess. After all, we are the only bank in town and it would be inconvenient to make him go out of town.”

JeriLee had heard enough talk about the banking business to absorb an idea of how it was run. “Did he maintain heavy balances?” she asked shrewdly.

He flushed. She had put her finger on it. When all was said and done, the man probably had greater cash balances than any other client of the bank. The weekly income was fantastic. “Yes,” he admitted.

Having made her point, she was silent.

He stared at her. She was not like other girls or even other women he had known. Certainly her mother did not have the same ability to cut through to the bone the way she did. In many ways she seemed to think like a man. Still there was nothing about her that was not female.

“What’s he like?” he asked curiously.

“What’s who like?” Veronica asked, bringing the eggs and bacon from the kitchen.

“Walter Thornton. JeriLee met him on the bus yesterday.”

“Oh, him? I read in the papers he’s going through a divorce.” She went to the dining-room door and called up the stars, “Bobby! You come right down and have your breakfast. Otherwise you’ll be late for school.”

Bobby’s voice echoed faintly through the door. “It’s not my fault, Mom. JeriLee was hogging the bathroom all morning.”

Veronica came back into the room and sat down at the table. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him. Every day he comes up with another excuse.”

John looked across the table at his daughter and smiled. She was blushing. “Don’t get upset,” he said to his wife. “Things like that happen sometimes. I can always drop him off on my way to the bank.”

Veronica turned to her daughter. “What is he like?” she asked. “Mr. Smith at the market says that whenever Mrs. Thornton came in she smelled of liquor. At times he even suspected she might be drunk. They all felt sorry for him.”

JeriLee shrugged her shoulders. “He seems very nice. Quiet. You wouldn’t think he is who he is.”

“Did you tell him you wanted to be a writer?” her mother asked.

JeriLee nodded.

“What did he say?”

“He thought it as nice. He was very polite.

“Maybe he will look at some of your things. He could give you advice.”

“Oh, Mother!” JeriLee exclaimed. “A man like that wouldn’t bother reading the work of a schoolkid.”

“I don’t know, you never—”

“I don’t think she should trouble him,” John interrupted. “JeriLee’s right. The man is a professional. It would be very unfair to ask him. He’s probably got more important things to worry about.”

“But—” Veronica began.

Again he interrupted. “Besides he’s not exactly the kind of person JeriLee should be associated with. He’s very different than us. He has different standards. Everyone knows that communists have very loose morals.”

“He’s a communist?” Veronica asked.

John nodded. “Mr. Carson says that the bank has to be very careful in our dealings with him. We don’t want anyone to get the wrong ideas about us.”

Mr. Carson was president of the bank, the leading Republican and the most important man in Port Clare. For the past twenty years he had personally selected the mayor of the town, although he himself was too modest to want the office for himself.

Veronica was impressed. “Well, if Mr. Carson thinks so—”

“I think that’s unfair!” JeriLee burst out. “There are many people who think that Senator McCarthy was worse than the communists.”

“Senator McCarthy is a real American. He was the only one standing between us and the communists. The way Truman was acting, we were lucky if we didn’t give the whole country away.” John’s voice was positive.

“Your father is right, dear,” Veronica said. “The less you have to do with him the better.”

Suddenly JeriLee found herself near tears. “I’m not doing anything with him, Mother. He just sits in the seat next to me on the bus.”

“That’s all right, JeriLee.” Her mother’s voice was soothing. “Just be careful you don’t let people see you talking too much to him.”

Bobby came tearing into the room, pulled his chair to the table and began helping himself to eggs and bacon.

“What’s the matter?” Veronica asked sharply. “Have you forgotten your manners? Not even a ‘good morning’?”

“Good morning,” Bobby grumbled, his mouth full. He looked at JeriLee. “It’s all her fault anyway. If she didn’t spend so much time in the bathroom I wouldn’t be late.”

“Take it easy,” John said. “I’ll drop you off at school.”

Bobby smiled triumphantly at JeriLee. “Gee, Dad, thanks.”

For a brief moment JeriLee had a twinge of hatred for her brother and the male kinship he had with their father. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. After all, she was a girl. But that did not make it right. It wasn’t reason enough to make her feel isolated from their world.

She rose from the table. “I’ll be going now.”

“All right, dear,” her mother said, beginning to gather the dishes.

She went around the table and dutifully kissed her mother and father. Then she picked up her schoolbooks, went out into the street and began walking toward the bus stop.

Mr. Thornton wasn’t on the bus that morning, nor the following morning or the morning after that. A few days later she read that he had gone to Hollywood for the filming of his latest picture, and that he was then going on to London, where one of his plays was being produced. It wasn’t until the following summer that, the day after she turned sixteen, she saw him again. By that time she was no longer a girl. She was a woman.

***

Physically she had matured long before. Her breasts had begun developing soon after she was eleven. By the time she was twelve she started having her periods. At fifteen there were still traces of baby fat in her face but during that winter it disappeared, leaving her cheeks with long interesting planes. She noticed the thickening of the hair under her arms and around her pubis. Like all the girls, she began shaving under her arms and using a deodorant. But she also became aware of other changes that had taken place within her.

It began in the spring, when as a member of the girls’ cheerleading squad she came on the field where the baseball team was practicing. Like the other girls, she wore the loose sweatshirt with an orange and black PC emblazoned across the white shirt and the very short skirt that barely came to the top of her thighs.

They took up their position in front of the stands which ran from behind home plate down toward first and third base. Miss Carruthers, the phys ed teacher, lined them up, their backs to the players on the field. Since JeriLee had been on the squad the year before, Miss Carruthers had her standing next to her as she led them through the various cheers.

After about fifteen minutes Mr. Loring, the baseball coach, came over to her. “Miss Carruthers, may I talk to you for a moment please?”

“Of course, Mr. Loring.” She stood waiting for him to continue.

He cleared his throat. “Privately.”

She nodded and followed him to the front of the visitors’ dugout. After looking around carefully to see that they were out of earshot he turned to her. “Miss Carruthers,” he growled, “what are you trying to do to my team?”

She was bewildered. “I… I don’t understand.”

“Can’t you see?” he snapped. “In the fifteen minutes you’ve been out there, my boys have missed two easy pop flies, the outfielder stepped into a pothole and the pitcher caught a line drive with his stomach.”

She still didn’t understand. “Mr. Loring, what has that got to do with me?”

He almost exploded. “You got to get those girls out of there or I won’t have any team left by the time the season starts.”

“Mr. Loring!” she exclaimed indignantly. “My girls are in no way interfering with your players. They are merely doing their jobs.”

“Their jobs are to cheer the team on,” Loring snarled. “Not tease them out of their minds. Look at that one.” He pointed. “Everything’s sticking out on her.”

“You mean JeriLee?”

“That’s the one!” he said angrily. “Those aren’t buttons on the front of her shirt!”

Miss Carruthers was silent for a moment as she watched JeriLee. There was no doubt about her female animal quality. Her nipples were hard and clearly defined, even under the loose sweatshirt. “I see what you mean,” she said thoughtfully.

“You’ll have to do something about her,” he said. “Make her wear a brassiere or something.”

“All my girls wear brassieres,” she retorted.

“Then get her one that fits!” he snapped.

Just then there was a loud crash from the far end of the field. An outfielder ran headlong into the fence and fell to the ground. Immediately the other players began to gather around him. The coach hurried down the field. By the time he got there, the boy was sitting up groggily.

“Goddamn it, Bernie!” the coach shouted angrily. “What are you trying to do? Kill yourself?”

“No, sir. I was just trying to catch the ball but I lost it in the sun.”

Loring turned and looked up at the sky. “Sun? What sun?” he shouted. “The sky is covered with clouds.”

Then he looked down the field and saw JeriLee. Even at this distance he could see the motion of her breasts. Suddenly he couldn’t take anymore. “Miss Carruthers!” he yelled. “Get those girls off my field!”

***

Bernie was waiting for JeriLee after practice. He fell into step with her as they walked toward the bus stop.

“Did you hurt yourself, Bernie?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“You really hit that fence. You ought to look where you’re going. What was on your mind?”

“I was watching you,” he admitted.

“That’s silly. You’re supposed to keep your eye on the ball.”

“I know. That’s what the coach said.”

“Then why were you watching me?” she asked.

“You don’t know?”

“No,” she said with annoyance. “I don’t know.”

“You grew since last year.”

“Of course I did, stupid. So did you.”

“I don’t mean like that,” he said, raising his hand over his head. “I mean like that.” He held his two hands out in front of his chest.

“You mean—?”

He nodded. “Just like Marilyn Monroe. That’s what all the fellows say.”

She flushed and involuntarily glanced down at herself. “They’re stupid,” she said but at the same time she felt her nipples harden and a warm feeling come over her.

Chapter 4

The beach club at the Point opened for the season in mid-May. The summer people began coming from New York, first for weekends, and later, when school closed, they moved out full time. By then the club would be crawling with children during the week, and on weekends their fathers would be stretched out burning from the sun, exhausted by an overdose of tennis or golf. And every Saturday night there would be a big buffet dinner and dance for the members.

A job at the club was a plum for the local kids. It was Bernie who first gave JeriLee the idea that she should apply.

“I’m going to work at the club this summer,” he announced.

“Doing what?”

“Lifeguard.”

“But you’re not a good swimmer. Even I can swim rings around you.”

He smiled at her. “They know that.”

“And they still hired you?”

He nodded. “They figure I’m big. The kids’ll listen to me.”

She nodded. At seventeen he was already well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a muscular body.

“Besides, they’ve already got two crackerjack swimmers guarding the beach. That’s where they really need them. I’ll be working the pool. That’s easy.”

“That’s where all the city girls hang out,” she said, feeling a strange twinge of jealousy. “You’ll really have it made.”

He blushed. “Cut it out, JeriLee. You know I don’t look at other girls.”

“Even when they come on with those two-piece suits—you know, the French ones they call bikinis?”

“They still won’t be you,” he said awkwardly. After a pause, he asked, “Why don’t you get a job out there?”

“Doing what?”

“I heard Mr. Corcoran telling somebody they were looking for waitresses. It’s not a bad job. Just a few hours at lunch and dinner. In between, your time is your own. We could see a lot of each other then.”

“I don’t know,” she said indecisively. “I don’t think my father would like it. You know how he feels about the summer people.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“What makes you think I can get the job?”

“Mr. Corcoran said many of the girls he interviewed weren’t pretty enough. He said it’s very important for the club to have good-looking people around.” He looked at her. “You’d have no trouble.”

She smiled. “You really think so?”