"In she goes."
Nick, winner, tired of it in less than an hour. He bought a bottle of
some acidulous drink just off the ice and refreshed himself with it,
drinking from the bottle's mouth. He was vaguely restless, dissatisfied.
Out again into the glare of two o'clock Fifty-third Street. He strolled
up a block toward Lake Park Avenue. It was hot. He wished the bus wasn't
sick. Might go in swimming, though. He considered this idly. Hurried
steps behind him. A familiar perfume wafted to his senses. A voice nasal
yet cooing. Miss Bauers. Miss Bauers on pleasure bent, palpably, being
attired in the briefest of silks, white-strapped slippers, white silk
stockings, scarlet hat. The Green Front Grocery and Market closed for a
half day each Thursday afternoon during July and August. Nicky had not
availed himself of the knowledge.
"Well, if it ain't Nicky! I just seen you come out of Moriarty's as I
was passing." (She had seen him go in an hour before and had waited a
patient hour in the drug store across the street.) "What you doing
around loose this hour the day, anyway?"
"I'm off 'safternoon."
"Are yuh? So'm I." Nicky said nothing. Miss Bauers shifted from one
plump silken leg to the other. "What you doing?"
"Oh, nothing much."
"So'm I. Let's do it together." Miss Bauers employed the direct method.
"Well," said Nick, vaguely. He didn't object particularly. And yet he
was conscious of some formless programme forming mistily in his mind--a
programme that did not include the berouged, be-powdered, plump, and
silken Miss Bauers.
"I phoned you this morning, Nicky. Twice."
"Yeh?"
"They said you wasn't in."
"Yeh?"
A hard young woman, Miss Bauers, yet simple: powerfully drawn toward
this magnetic and careless boy; powerless to forge chains strong enough
to hold him. "Well, how about Riverview? I ain't been this summer."
"Oh, that's so darn far. Take all day getting there, pretty near."
"Not driving, it wouldn't."
"I ain't got the bus. Busted."
His apathy was getting on her nerves. "How about a movie, then?" Her
feet hurt. It was hot.
His glance went up the street toward the Harper, down the street toward
the Hyde Park. The sign above the Harper offered Mother o' Mine. The
lettering above the Hyde Park announced Love's Sacrifice.
"Gawd, no," he made decisive answer.
Miss Bauers's frazzled nerves snapped. "You make me sick! Standing
there. Nothing don't suit you. Say, I ain't so crazy to go round with
you. Cheap guy! Prob'ly you'd like to go over to Wooded Island or
something, in Jackson Park, and set on the grass and feed the squirrels.
That'd be a treat for me, that would." She laughed a high, scornful
tear-near laugh.
"Why--say----" Nick stared at her, and yet she felt he did not see her.
A sudden peace came into his face--the peace of a longing fulfilled. He
turned his head. A Lake Park Avenue street car was roaring its way
toward them. He took a step toward the roadway. "I got to be going."
Fear flashed its flame into Miss Bauers's pale blue eyes. "Going! How do
you mean, going? Going where?"
"I got to be going." The car had stopped opposite them. His young face
was stern, implacable. Miss Bauers knew she was beaten, but she clung to
hope tenaciously, piteously. "I got to see a party, see?"
"You never said anything about it in the first place. Pity you wouldn't
say so in the first place. Who you got to see, anyway?" She knew it was
useless to ask. She knew she was beating her fists against a stone wall,
but she must needs ask notwithstanding: "Who you got to see?"
"I got to see a party. I forgot." He made the car step in two long
strides; had swung himself up. "So long!" The car door slammed after
him. Miss Bauers, in her unavailing silks, stood disconsolate on the hot
street corner.
He swayed on the car platform until Sixty-third Street was reached.
There he alighted and stood a moment at the curb surveying idly the
populous corner. He purchased a paper bag of hot peanuts from a vender's
glittering scarlet and nickel stand, and crossed the street into the
pathway that led to Jackson Park, munching as he went. In an open space
reserved for games some boys were playing baseball with much hoarse
hooting and frenzied action. He drew near to watch. The ball,
misdirected, sailed suddenly toward him. He ran backward at its swift
approach, leaped high, caught it, and with a long curving swing, so easy
as to appear almost effortless, sent it hurtling back. The lad on the
pitcher's mound made as if to catch it, changed his mind, dodged,
started after it.