Boys & Girls Together (84 page)

“Going to night school. They have these marvelous night-school courses. Do you think I ought to go to night school?”

“I don’t know, honey; what for?”

“Oh, no reason. But it isn’t expensive or anything. It’s not really actually a formal night school I’m talking about. What it is is a bunch of the wives get together and they pay some expert to lecture to them once a week on whatever they want to learn about. You can take a course in art or music or even sculpture, if you want. The teachers are very good so they say. Real experts—graduate students from Princeton, or some of them come all the way from New York. I was thinking I might take a literature. Books and like that. Novels.”

“Are you going to put on that cold cream or aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. I was just trying to make up my mind.”

“Well, hurry up and make it; I’m tired.”

Betty Jane started putting on her cold cream. “I can take any kind of literature course I want, practically. I think I’d learn a lot. Everybody says about how much you learn.”

“Well, if you feel it’s important.”

“Oh, I don’t care really; it’s just an idea. I mean, I’ve never been to night school or anything since junior college.”

“Do what you want, honey.”

“There’s no telling what I might do,” Betty Jane said.

Shivering in the January night, Betty Jane sat in her car and watched the other ladies arrive. She had got to the grammar school early, which was silly of her, and so she sat, waiting as the other cars drove into the teachers’ parking lot, and the other ladies got out and entered the school. Betty Jane lit a cigarette. She was, she knew, terribly nervous, and she hoped the teacher would let her alone on this, her first night in class, and not ask her anything. She remembered how, when she was a child, she had averted her eyes whenever the teachers asked a question, whether she knew the answer or not. I feel like I’m back in school again, Betty Jane thought, and then she realized how silly she was, because she
was
back in school again, night school now. If I can only do well, she thought. She had always liked books, so there wasn’t any reason for her not to do well, and, besides, having Charley to help her was almost like having a teacher in your very own home.

But of course she couldn’t ask him to help her. That would be bad. She must do it all herself, master the books, and then Charley would be proud, and if she became a really marvelous reader, maybe she could even help him out sometime when his work load got too heavy. Maybe she might even take a manuscript without his knowing and read it and then tell him what she thought of it and maybe he would agree with her and then afterward, maybe, he might even
give
her one or two manuscripts to read when he felt he needed help.

It was possible. But don’t you count on it, she told herself. Don’t you go and ruin everything by counting on it. Betty Jane got out of the car, hoping she didn’t have a run in her stockings. Runs rattled her; she was never at her best when her stockings ran, so she checked and double checked and they were both just as straight and perfect as you could want, so she nodded and pressed down the eight crevices between her gloved fingers and marched into grammar school. The novel class met in room 121. Betty Jane said it aloud.

“One twenty-one.”

Moving in the proper direction, she gave her stockings another check, removed her gloves, stuffed them quickly into her purse, reached the room. Taking off her coat, Betty Jane straightened her skirt and walked in.

Eleven ladies sat in little desks with arm rests. All eleven turned to look at her and she smiled and scurried to the farthest back seat in the corner.

“Move up, please.”

Betty Jane looked at the teacher. He was tall and kind of handsome in a youngish sort of way.

“My throat isn’t all it might be tonight. Come down front, Miss ...”

“Fiske, Mrs.”

“Sanders, Mr.”

Betty Jane heard the class laughing as she moved down to the front of the room, being very careful not to run her stockings.

“That was a laugh at your expense, Mrs. Fiske; I’m sorry.”

Mr. Sanders opened a book and leaned against the blackboard. “All right, ladies; now I’m sure we’ve all read
The Sound and the Fury
.”

Oh dear, oh dear, Betty Jane thought; I’ve always meant to read that book. If only I had. If only I had.

“Why is it called
The Sound and the Fury
, Mrs. Lauderdale?”

“Why is it called
The Sound and the Fury
?” Mrs. Lauderdale said.

“Mrs. Lauderdale, in the future would you please try not to repeat all of my questions back to me?”

“That’s a habit of mine,” Mrs. Lauderdale explained. “It gives me a little extra time to think.”

“That’s certainly very canny of you, Mrs. Lauderdale. Well?”

“I don’t know why it’s called
The Sound and the Fury
.”

“I do,” another lady said.

“Wonderful, Mrs. Bond. Why?”

“It’s a quotation.”

“And the source?”

Mrs. Bond snapped her fingers softly several times. “I knew it a minute ago.”

“You tell us, Mrs. Fiske.”

“I don’t know,” Betty Jane said.

“I’ll give you a hint. Whenever anyone asks the source of a quotation, answer either Shakespeare or the Bible and you’ll do fine.”

“The Bible,” Betty Jane said.

“Tsk, tsk, Mrs. Fiske,” Mr. Sanders said, and the class laughed at the rhyme. “I apologize again.”

“That’s all right,” Betty Jane said, but she could have killed him.

“Note this, ladies: the quote is from
Macbeth
, and the gist of it is that life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Oh, I knew that, Betty Jane thought. What’s the matter with me?

“What did you think of the book, Mrs. Fiske?”

“I didn’t read it.”

“Why?”

“This is my first time here.”

“All right, Mrs. Oliver. What did you think?”

“It was crazy. I read the start and it was crazy. That Faulkner writes like a moron if you ask me and besides I don’t like Southern writers, they’re all the time so pessimistic and dirty.”

“It
was
written by a moron, Mrs. Oliver, Benjy is a moron. Remember the quote? A tale told by an idiot? Apt?”

“I couldn’t say. I didn’t read it.”

“Who did read it?” Mr. Sanders wondered.

“I meant to,” Mrs. Bond said.

“Close only counts in horseshoes, Mrs. Bond. None of you read it, I see. Ladies, I’m miffed. Shame on you all. Mrs. Fiske has an excuse, but the rest of you ...” He shook his head.

“I want to talk about J. D. Salinger,” Mrs. Lauderdale said. “My husband and I had a big fight about J. D. Salinger.”

“Your husband said she was pregnant and you said she wasn’t,” Mr. Sanders said.

Mrs. Lauderdale looked at him. “That’s absolutely right.”

Mr. Sanders sighed.

“Who’s pregnant?” Betty Jane asked.

“
Branny
,” Mr. Sanders said.

Oh, now, I meant to read that too, Betty Jane thought.

“Do you like Salinger, Mrs. Fiske?”

You shouldn’t ask me questions, Betty Jane thought. This is my first time and it isn’t fair. “I don’t know ... I guess ... yes—well, not so much. If you ask me everybody sounds the same.”

“Many critics feel he writes the best dialogue since Hemingway but you say all his characters sound the same, is that right?”

Betty Jane stared at the desk top where someone had scratched “Peter is a Fink!” and she heard the class laughing at her and she almost said “They all do talk the same my husband says so too and he’s smarter than all of you put together.” But she didn’t.

What was it she had thought a few minutes ago? Something about mastering the class on her own? How silly. She was stupid and that was all there was to it and what was she doing anyway, sitting in a room talking about books? The only apt thing was the school child’s desk and she opened her purse, feeling around for her nail file, and when the point of it found her fingertip, quick tears came to her eyes. Or maybe the tears were there already, what did it matter? Sneaking the file out, Betty Jane stared up at the teacher, who was busy now, in animated conversation with the other ladies, talking all about was Franny pregnant. Betty Jane kept her eyes on the teacher, and she began scratching her initials in the desk top.

My God, she thought, I’m defacing school property. She scratched away, finishing the “B,” starting on the curve of the “J.” I think if Mr. Sanders caught me I would just die, because he’d probably make some smarty remark and all the others would giggle. They really liked him. Betty Jane watched them watching Mr. Sanders. Well, he was young and sarcastic and that was undoubtedly a change from what they were used to. Betty Jane finished the “J” and wondered what else she should scratch in. What was it she used to do in grammar school? She smiled. Grammar school made her do that—smile. Once, in fourth grade, Penny had made a survey and found that eleven out of seventeen boys in class had scratched “BJB” on their desk tops. Betty Jane Bunnel.

Eleven out of seventeen, Betty Jane thought.

I should have listened! All I did was smile at the boys instead of listening to the teacher and if I’d listened I’d be smart now and if I were smart I would have thought of something just terribly clever to say back to Mr. Sanders and put him in his place. No, I wouldn’t either, because if I were smart I wouldn’t have to bother with putting him in his place because I wouldn’t be here now.

Mr. Sanders glanced at her.

Betty Jane quick hid her nail file.

Mr. Sanders glanced at her again.

I wonder what else he does for a living? Betty Jane thought. Then she thought, I wonder why I wonder what else he does for a living? What possible difference does it make to me what Mr. Sanders does? For a moment Betty Jane paid attention. They were still going on about that silly pregnancy and Mrs. Lauderdale was raising her voice and so was Mrs. Bond and you could just see Mrs. Oliver getting angry and Mr. Sanders was standing in front of the room with his arms crossed, smiling. It would probably be rude for me to get up and leave, Betty Jane thought, sneaking out her nail file, scratching at the desk top. I’ll just have to stick it out. Maybe I’ll get Robby that new pair of shoes tomorrow. Honestly, that boy goes through shoes like Mr. Sanders—

That boy goes through shoes like Mr. Sanders?

What’s happening to me? I’ve got Mr. Sanders on the brain, and if that isn’t silly, I don’t know what is. Penny would say ... What did Penny say? Something about going fishing?

Ridiculous! In the first place, he doesn’t attract me. Betty Jane looked closely at her teacher. There certainly wasn’t much wrong with his face, and his physique was better than—What are you thinking? Stop it. He’s much younger than you are. He doesn’t look much past twenty-five. Forget it. Even if you were silly enough to contemplate doing such a ridiculous thing, and even if he decided to do it too, where would you find to go except the back seat of the car?

The back seat of the car?

Betty Jane blushed.

I must pay attention to what they’re saying, she decided, so she tuned in as Mrs. Lauderdale was saying, “Listen, I’ve been pregnant and Franny wasn’t!”

“Then why did she get into a foetal position?” Mrs. Bond asked. “Salinger says specifically that she gets into a foetal position!”

“Ladies, I appreciate your enthusiasm but ...”

The back seat of the car was too dangerous, Betty Jane thought. Even if you parked someplace quiet and out of the way, what was to prevent some policeman from driving by and seeing the car and—

You’re married, she thought. Not to mention the mother of two.

And besides, how do you know Mr. Sanders can keep his mouth shut?

What if he blabbed? “Hey, fellas, listen, you’ll never believe this but the other night this old bag comes to class—well, not exactly an old bag but she’s seen better days—and after class I get in the car with her and—”

I must be going mad, Betty Jane thought. She looked down at her completed initial scratching.

“B.J.—Mr. S.”

I
am
going mad, Betty Jane thought, and she prayed for class to end.

“Until next week ladies,” Mr. Sanders said. Then he said, “Mrs. Fiske?” and he started walking in her direction.

Betty Jane placed her purse directly above the initials.

“Could you wait a few moments, please?” Mr. Sanders said.

I could not. “Certainly.”

Betty Jane sat very still while he dispensed with Mrs. Lauderdale and Mrs. Bond and Mrs. Edson, who hadn’t spoken a word but who was terribly upset with all the talk of pregnancy. Betty Jane fidgeted, managing finally to get her gloves on.

When they were alone, Mr. Sanders said, “I went too far with you.”

Betty Jane pressed at the crevices between her fingers.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I do that. I think all his characters sound the same too.”

“Well, then, you should have said so.”

“I should have.”

Betty Jane stood. “You were very nice to apologize.” He was really terribly tall, when you were right next to him.

“What I really wanted to find out was will you be here next week?”

“Well, I don’t think so.”

“I was afraid of that. Because of how I acted?”

“Oh, absolutely not, not at all. It’s just, well, I won’t be here, what’s the point. But I think you’re a very good teacher, Mr. Sanders. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

She picked up her purse and coat and started toward the door.

He had his coat on and moved in the same direction.

She smiled at him quickly, then looked away.

“It’s so embarrassing isn’t it, when this happens?”

“Yes.”

“Goodbyes should be final.”

“Yes. Goodbye, Mr. Sanders.”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Fiske.”

They walked through the door and both turned the same way.

“Oh dear,” Betty Jane said, and she stopped.

He stopped beside her.

“I’m going to the parking lot.”

“I’m heading that way; I’m going to the train station.”

They started walking again, together. “New York or Philadelphia?”