"This sun is actually getting too hot. Let's go inside," she said. I
helped carry the things in. She rinsed the dishes. Having seen her the
previous evening I would not have thought she had the sort of figure
to wear slacks successfully. They were beautifully tailored and she
looked well in them. We went into the living-room. It was slightly
overfurnished. The lamps were in bad taste. But it was clean and
comfortable.
She sat on the couch and pulled one leg up and locked her hands around
her knee. "Want to hear about Timmy and me? The sad story? Not sad, I
guess."
"If you want to tell it."
"I've never told anybody. Maybe it's time. I turned fifteen before I
got out of the eighth grade. I was older than the other kids. Timmy was
fourteen. He was the biggest boy in class. We never had anything to do
with each other until that skit. We practiced a couple of times. We
got to be friends. It wasn't a girl-friend-boy-friend thing. More like
a couple of boys. I wasn't the most feminine creature in the world,
believe me. I could run like the wind and I could fight with my fists.
"I didn't want Timmy to come out to the house. I was ashamed of where I
lived. I never wanted any of the kids to see how and where I lived. My
God, we lived like animals. It wasn't so bad until my mother died but
from then on it was pretty bad. You saw the place?"
"I saw it."
"The old man kept pretty well soaked in his _vino_. My brother was
completely no good. My sister slept with anybody who took the trouble
to ask her. We lived in filth. We were on the county relief rolls. The
do-gooders brought us food and clothing at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I was proud as hell inside. I couldn't see any way out. The best I
could do was try to keep myself clean as a button and not let any of
the kids come out there."
She came over and took one of my cigarettes, bent over for me to light
it. "Timmy came out there. It nearly killed me. Then I saw that it was
all right. He didn't pay any attention to the way things were. I mean
it didn't seem to mean much to him. That's the way they were, so that's
the way they were. He was my friend. After that I was able to talk to
him. He understood. He had his dreams, too. We talked over our dreams.
"When school was out that summer he came out a lot. He used to cut
lawns and make money and we'd go to the movies. We used to swim in the
river. He'd come out on his bike. He got hold of a broken-down boy's
bike for me. He fixed it up and I painted it. Then we could get around
better. The relief people gave the old man a hard ride for buying me a
bike. I had to explain how I got it and prove I didn't steal it. I can
still remember the sneaky eyes on that cop.
"When it happened to us it was sudden. It was in late August. I'd
gotten a job in the dime store by lying about my age and filling out
the forms wrong. I was squirreling the money away. I spent Sundays with
Timmy. His brother and his father didn't like him to see me, but he
managed it.
"He had a basket on the front of his bike and we went off on a Sunday
picnic. We went a long way into the country. Fifteen miles, I guess. We
walked the bikes up a trail. We found a place under trees where it was
like a park. It was far away from anybody. We could have been alone in
the world. Maybe we were. We ate and then we stretched out and talked
about how high school would be when it started in September. It was
hot. We were in the shade. He went to sleep. I watched him while he
was sleeping, the way his eyelashes were, and the way he looked like a
little kid when he slept. I felt a big warmth inside me. It was a new
way to feel toward him. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I slipped
my arm under his neck and half lay across him and kissed him. He woke
up with me kissing him.
"He was funny and kind of half scared and sort of half eager at the
same time. I'd had a pretty liberal education as you can well imagine.
I guess it was pretty sad. Two kids being as awkward and fumbling as
you can possibly imagine, there on that hill in the shade. But awkward
as we were, it happened.
"We hardly talked at all on the way back. I knew enough to be damn
scared. But fortunately nothing happened. From then on we were
different with each other. It got to be something we did whenever we
had a chance. It got better and better for us. But we weren't friends
the way we were before. Sometimes we seemed almost to be enemies. We
tried to hurt each other. It was a strong hunger. We found good places
to go. It lasted for a year and a half. We never talked about marriage
or things like that. We lived for now. There was one place we would go.
We'd take one of the boats and--"
She stopped abruptly. We looked into each other's eyes.
"Now you know where he meant?" I asked her softly.
"I think I do."
"Where?"
"I don't think we can handle it that way, do you?"
"How do you mean?"
"I think we better go there together, don't you?"
"There's nothing to keep you from going there by yourself, Antoinette."
"I know that. What would it mean if I told you I won't?"
"In spite of the money hunger?"
"I would be honest with a thing like this. I would. Believe me. I'd
have known nothing about it. How much is there?"
I waited several moments, measuring her and the situation. I couldn't
get to it without her. "Nearly sixty thousand, he said."
She sat down abruptly, saying a soundless _Oh_. "How--how would Timmy
get hold of money like that?"
"He did all the book work for the four companies he and his brother
owned. He took over two years milking that much in cash out of the four
companies."
"Why would he do that to George? It doesn't sound like Timmy."
"He planned to run off with Eloise."
"That thing George married? That pig. I knew her. Where is she?"
"She went off with another man two years ago."
"Maybe she took the money with her."
"Timmy said she didn't know where he buried it."
"And she'd hardly be able to find it. I can guarantee that. So--this is
George's money then, isn't it?"