She suddenly fell into reverie.
She tried to remember when Mom and Dad had not been off somewhere, and the recollection was reaching for memories of rare days in long years.
Tony came back to the table, slopping daiquiris at every step. He sat down.
"All right, Joy," he took her hand. "Tell me all about it."
"There's nothing to tell," she said. "I just need a drink."
"Quit kidding. Iris had you on the carpet for the strip act, didn't she."
"Um-hunh. She kicked me out."
"She couldn't. All right, they had to do something to you. After all, that was a pretty raw stunt you pulled. It might have been okay at a party, or something, out in the high school auditorium. I mean, that's pretty raw stuff. But she couldn't kick you out just like that. You've only got another month to graduation."
"That's what she did."
"Can't your folks do anything?"
"What do you mean do anything? They don't even know I'm alive."
"Can't you send them a cable or something? Maybe if you radioed them they'd come back. My old man wouldn't let the school get away with anything like that."
"Listen, all my family ever does for me is leave me lying around with whatever relatives they can find who'll take me. It's been going on like that since I was five--ever since Dad got to be president of Intercontinental."
"You don't mean that kind of stuff."
"The hell I don't. Every darned thing in the world comes ahead of me with those two. The year I was five they went to Mexico, As soon as I was old enough they sent me to a private school, and then left me there summers while they went off to Washington or Texas or China or Brazil or almost anywhere I wasn't. First they could leave me with grandpa and grandma, and then, later on after they died, with my aunt. Anyway, they always found some place to leave me where they wouldn't have to be bothered. And even when they were here they never paid any attention to me--unless I did something really wrong. Once I ran away from a school in Boston. That was two years ago, just before I came back to Paugwasset. You can bet they paid attention then, came tearing in from Chicago by plane." Joyce grinned, as though their frenzied arrival made a pleasant memory. "After that, for about a month, I was a real big deal. There was nothing good enough for me--until they forgot, and dumped me on Aunt Priscilla, who only stays at the house with me because Daddy gives her so much money to do it."
She broke off, shaking her head, so that her hair swung heavily on her shoulders.
"Can I have another, Tony?"
He rose obediently and went to the bar where Chester mixed a second set of daiquiris. She thought, maybe Mom and Daddy would come back if they knew what had happened. But, no. They were in Europe for the summer, and they would, instead, cable Aunt Priscilla to go to the dean and straighten everything out--and Aunt Priscilla would, too, but her nagging would be beyond endurance; she would be reminding Joyce of it every day, needling her, preaching ...
Tony set the fresh glass before her and squeezed into the booth. Somebody had encouraged the juke-box with nickels, and a sex-in-a-highchair voice was whispering, "... Just a little lovin', honey, would do a lot for me ..."
On the floor Sandy Hart and Harry Reingold, his six feet tremendously mismatched with her five, were dancing with determined irrelevance to the music.
The May afternoon sun had slipped behind a tree, casting a deep shadow on the stained glass windows, and darkening the room to a warm, intimate mood. Joyce's cocktail filled her mouth and throat with a raw distaste, but her body was becoming warm, and the tense feeling in her abdomen was subsiding and Tony was so good and sweet and wonderful, listening like this to her.
"I thought I would go down to the Courier and get the job this summer," she said, "and then if I'm working they can't say I'm no good, can they?"
"Who?" Tony wanted to know.
"Anybody. Daddy or Mom. Aunt Priscilla or dirty old Iris."
"Whoever said you were no good?"
"Everybody. They all do. You will, too, after a while."
"Why should I, Joy?"
She was a little drunk, now. She knew it. She could feel it. And it was such a wonderful feeling. "Because I'm bad. Because I do crazy things just to get into trouble. Because I got up there and started taking off my clothes in front of everybody. Tony, am I pretty?"
"Of course, honeybun."
"That's the first time. The very first time."
"The first time you--uh--took things off?"
"No. I don't mean that. I mean it's the first time you ever called me honeybun. Tony, you're very sweet to me." She could feel tears of earnestness coming into her eyes. "That's the first time anybody called me honeybun--except once Daddy did, after they found me when I ran away."
Just a little self-consciously, because he too was feeling the warm, singing flow of the liquor, Tony put his arm around Joyce's shoulder and drew her close to him, "You'll always be a honeybun to me."
He bent closer and kissed her cheek. She let her head fall back on his shoulder, and her face looked up at his. Her lips were a little slack, slightly parted and moist and glistening. Her eyes sparkled. He bent and kissed her wet lips, letting his tongue caress the pink flesh.
Suddenly he pulled free, a little frightened at the ardor with which her lips answered his. "Let's have another drink," he said.
"Not now, darling. Kiss me again."
"First another drink," Very firm and adult, though his heart was pounding and his breathing seemed to swell him to the bursting point.
Joyce watched him crossing the floor, aware of his tension as of her own. Something inside her kept saying, honeybun, honeybun, honeybun, over and over, as though it were especially important, and she had a confused recollection of her father, holding her close in his arms as he had after they had found her when she ran away, and saying to her, "Poor little honeybun. Poor little baby."
Honeybun. There was a song like that. Having too much fun--with honeybun. What's Tony doing with that drink? What's that drink doing with me? Me baby honeybun, Daddy's gone away for fun ... No. My baby bunting, Tony's gone a-hunting. Gone to get a glass of gin to dip his baby bunting in ... What kind of nonsense? Pull yourself together, Joyce--you're a big girl now and Tony loves you and you don't need your Daddy ...
Tony was coming across the floor now, unsteadily attempting to keep the daiquiris intact in their glasses.
Joyce slid out of the booth. Got to help Tony carry the glasses to dip his baby bunting ... What's wrong with the darned feet? Silly feet, dopey little feet.
Funny about feet, funny about bunny, funny about Tony. Everything was suddenly very funny. Tony and his glasses. Iris Shay and her spectacles. Men seldom made passes at Iris Shay. But they would make passes at Joyce, because men loved Joyce. Funny--ha-ha. Tony had reached the table and was carefully sliding the glasses across.
"Tony," Joyce said, standing there trying to control her feet. "Tony," she said urgently.
"What's the trouble, honeybun?"
"That's it. That's what I wanted you to say. You love your honeybun?"
"I think so," Tony said. "But you'll have to wait till I sit down. I'm concentrating on these daiquiris."
"Never mind. That's all I wanted to hear." She pulled herself very erect, and with a supreme effort seized herself by the arm and escorted herself back to the table. "Let's drink a toast."
"What kind of toast?" Tony had a sudden, somewhat owlish dignity.
"A toast to Tony and his honeybun."
"I dig that," Tony said, "Here's to honeybun." They drank quickly, and the flavor of the liquor was suddenly mild, going down almost like water.
"Don't you think we ought to have another?" Tony inquired.
"I kind of think you've had enough," a voice said, and they looked up to find Chester standing over the table. "Maybe it would be better if the next couple drinks were coffee? Hunh, folks?"
"Were we getting noisy?" Tony asked, very innocently.
"Well, just a mite," Chester said. "Let's put it like this. You're not as lit as you think you are, but you're a little more lit than you ought to be."
"Thank you, Chester," Joyce said, graciously, struggling to slip out of the booth again. "We knew we could depend upon you to keep an eye on us."
"Anytime at all, Joyce," Chester said, "You and Tony are two of my favorite people. And Tony has to drive you back to town. I like my favorite people to get back okay."
"Check," Tony said. He took Joyce's arm. "Well, s'long Chester. Be seein' you."
There was a little difficulty getting the car turned around, but, once on the road, Tony found the machine amazingly responsive to his slightest whim.
The late afternoon sun was warm on their flushed faces, and the wind caught at Joyce's dark hair. She moved closer to Tony on the seat of the convertible, ducking her head to slip it under his right arm.
"Tony?"
"Yes, baby?"
"You love your honeybun?"
"Yup. Intensely."
"Then kiss me."
"Not while I'm driving."
"Then stop driving."
A side road turned off at right-angles to the dirt thoroughfare over which the convertible was bumping. Tony swung the car into it. Suddenly they were in deep woods. The waning sun cast a golden light on the pale spring greens of the trees, and a swift brook gurgled over its stony bed beside the road. Tony halted the car.
Joyce said, "I feel so free and light." She got out of the car and ran to the little brook. In a moment Tony came and stood beside her, putting his arm about her. She turned to him, suddenly and pressed her lips up to his.
Tony," she said. "Let's go wading."
"Okay," Quickly he slipped his sleeveless sweater over his bend, and quickly shed his shoes and socks, rolled up his trousers. Joyce's shoes and stockings fell at her feet. For a moment she stood there, a strange golden-haired wood nymph in a white sweater and red corduroy skirt.
He came close to her. Then suddenly, his arms went about her, crushing her against him, crushing her lips to his lips.
Then she pulled her mouth free. "Honey," she said hoarsely, her voice urgent and almost fierce.
"Not here," Tony said. "Not now."
"Why, Tony?"
3 ~ Shock
Anthony Wayne Thrine, registered owner of New York State motor vehicle number 6N83-215, director under trusteeship of the Farmers and Mechanics Trust of Paugwasset, beneficiary of Freedom Mutual Life Insurance policy number L-615357-M and insured under policy number L-615369-V, former Eagle Scout (annual membership card now four months expired), retired president of the Paugwasset High School Dramatic Society and Senior in the student body of that academy of secondary education, was a seriously upset eighteen-year-old. A morbid fear had been growing in him for hours, and now had reached a pitch where even that source of interminable wonder, the easy, flowing motion of his car, had lost its joy.
He had been unable to reach Joyce all day, though he had telephoned her aunt right after classes, and repeatedly during the afternoon. He had called Ruth too and she had, with her passion for vicarious excitement, immediately begun to worry at fever pitch.
It was almost seven now, and he had called the Taylor house again only a few minutes before. Still no word of Joyce.
He swung his car into the gravel turnaround his father had had installed in the back yard and leaped over the door without bothering to open it--simply because leaping over the door was more difficult than the more ordinary procedure. He was close to the steps of the back porch when a voice caught him in mid-stride. "Tony!" It was his mother. "Tony, you just put that car right in the garage. Don't you dare leave it there in the driveway."
He stopped and called upward to a window. "I'm going to use it right after dinner, Mom."
"I said put that car away."
"Oh, all right. Did Joyce call me?"
Satisfied, the maternal voice lost its shrill pitch, and floated down sympathetically in the suburban quiet. "No. Nobody called."
Unhappily, Tony backed the convertible into the garage and went into the house. The cook, who was also the laundress, said, "Better get washed up, Tony." He didn't answer her, but climbed the back stairs to his father's room, where he used the bedside telephone to call Joyce's aunt.
"Has Joyce come in yet ... Yes, it's me again ... No, I just wanted to know if you'd heard from her ... Well, we had a sort of date after school ... Is she supposed to come home for dinner? ... Well, I'm home now, so if you do hear from her could you ask her to call me ... Thank you ... Goodbye."
He got undressed for his shower, thinking about Joyce; about her slender body, about the soft smoothness of her lips. He found himself naked, staring at the cluttered top of his dresser. It was a strange litter--a photo of his and Joyce's heads, slightly out of focus; a pocket game the object of which was to guide four little balls into a central aperture; a left-over radio tube from the last repair job on his portable; a pair of broken pliers; a silver-backed military brush set, deeply scored with the initials he had himself imposed with a nailfile; an ink bottle; a locket that belonged to Joyce; a pair of cheap binoculars; an ink-stained doily; a retired hunting knife; miscellaneous phonograph needles; a solid geometry textbook; a cartoon book picked up on the expedition he and Joyce had made to the burlesque show in Union City, New Jersey, which had strangely provided the basis for Joyce's expulsion from Paugwasset High; a key-ring with numerous unidentifiable keys and, finally, a button-covered beanie left over from some remote era like an archaeological relic of a forgotten civilization.
He raced through his shower, dressed quickly and came down to find his parents already seated at the table.
"You're a little late this evening, Tony," John Thrine said, mildly critical. He personally made a fetish of promptitude.
"I was trying to hunt down Joyce Taylor." Tony tried unsuccessfully to smile. "She was supposed to meet me this afternoon." He set about his soup with great protective vigor. What was the matter with Joyce? Where was she? What was she doing? Didn't she know he'd be worried about her? She had been terribly silent on the ride home, last night ...