Peyton Place (13 page)

These thoughts set up a hammering in her temples, and Constance put a knuckle between her teeth and bit down on it, hard.

Allison was always the postmistress at parties where kissing games were played. This was of her own choosing and, in fact, if she was voted down for this job, she refused to play the game at all, saying that it was time for her to leave anyway, and making her escape before anyone could protest. When Selena said that after all this was Allison's birthday, and it wasn't right for her to be postmistress at her own party, Allison said, “Well, I'm not going to stumble around in the dark letting any old boy kiss
me!
If I can't call the numbers, we won't play at all.”

Selena shrugged. She didn't really care who called the numbers as long as she could play herself.

Mr. Glenn Miller's orchestra sobbed a ballad of love and moonlight and Allison said, “A letter for number ten.”

Selena felt her way through the dark room and into the foyer. Rodney Harrington groped for her and when he touched her, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the mouth. Then he went back into the living room and Allison said, “A letter ror number fifteen.” Ted Carter went into the hall. He kissed Selena gently, holding her by the shoulders, but when she realized who her partner was, she pressed herself close to him and whispered,
“Really
kiss me, Ted.”

“I did,” Ted whispered back.

“No, silly, I mean like
this,”
said Selena and pulled his head down.

When she released him, Ted was gasping, and he felt his ears redden in the dark. Selena laughed, deep in her throat, and Ted grabbed her roughly.

“D'you mean like
this?”
he asked, and kissed her so hard that he felt her teeth scrape against his.

“Hey!” yelled Rodney Harrington from the living room. “What's going on out there? Give somebody else a chance.”

Everyone laughed when Selena came back into the living room.

“A letter for number four,” called Allison, and the game went on.

At ten-thirty, two or three girls said that they had to be home by eleven o'clock, and someone snapped on the lights.

“Nobody gave Allison her thirteen spanks!” cried one girl, and everyone began to laugh and push toward Allison.

“That's right,” they agreed. “Thirteen spanks and one to grow on.”

“Time to take your medicine, Allison!”

“I'm too big to spank,” said Allison. “So don't anybody dare try.”

She was laughing with the others, but there was a threat behind her words.

“O.K.,” said Rodney Harrington. “So she's too big to spank, kids. Lay off. She's big enough to kiss now.”

Before Allison could run or dodge, he pulled her to him and pressed his mouth against hers. He held her so tightly that she could feel the buttons on his coat digging into her. His face was damp and he smelled of lavender soap and sweat, and he pressed her body in a curving arc against his, so that she thought that she could feel the moist heat of his skin through all his clothing.

“Oh!” gasped Allison, when he released her, her face scarlet. “Oh, how dare you!”

She rubbed the back of her hand vigorously against her mouth and kicked Rodney as hard as she could in the shins.

Rodney laughed. “Be careful,” he warned, “or I'll give you one to grow on!”

“You're hateful, Rodney Harrington,” said Allison, and then she burst into tears and ran out of the room.

Everyone smiled a little uncertainly, but they were all too used to Allison's swiftly changing moods to be actually uncomfortable.

“Come on, kids,” said Selena. “The party's over.”

She led the way to the dining room where Constance had provided a rack and clothes hangers. Everyone took his own coat and then drifted toward the front door.

“Good-by, Allison,” they called up the staircase.

“‘Bye, Allison. Happy birthday. It was a swell party.”

“Good-by, Allison. Thanks for asking me.”

In her room Allison lay in the dark, feeling tears that were almost cool against her hot face.

“Hateful,” she whispered. “Hateful, hateful, hateful!”

Her stomach quivered as she remembered Rodney's wet mouth and the heaviness of his soft, full lips.

“Hateful,” she said aloud. “Hateful. He spoiled my whole party!”

On the Saturday afternoon following her birthday, Allison walked to Selena's house to meet her friend. She stood in front of the clearing, kicking disconsolately at the frozen ground, until finally the door of the Cross shack opened. It was Joey who came running toward her.

“Selena's in the house,” said Joey. “She'll be out in just a minute. Come on in the sheep pen. We got new baby lambs.”

Joey was a thin, wild-haired child dressed in faded dungarees and a ragged, short-sleeved shirt. His feet were bare on the cold November ground and, as usual, his nose was running. Joey was used to this affliction. He sniffed continually, and from time to time he wiped his dripping nose on his upper arm with the result that his nose was always red and chapped. It made Allison cold just to look at Joey. As she followed him into the sheep pen, she noticed that his bare heels were gray with a crust of dirt.

“Oh-h-h.” The sound came from Allison in a whisper of joy as she bent to look at the small furry creatures which Joey displayed with pride. “Oh, how lovely they are, Joey. Are they yours?”

“Naw,” said Joey. “They're Pa's, same as the big ones.”

“Will he let you keep these for pets?”

“Naw. He's gonna raise ’em big like the others, then he can slaughter ’em and sell ’em for chops and legs of lamb and like that.”

Allison's face went white. “Oh, that's terrible!” she said. “Don't you think that he'd let you keep these little ones if you asked him? Maybe you could raise them yourself and later you could sell the wool from them.”

“Are you nuts?” asked Joey, not facetiously but in a serious tone, as if he really wanted to know. “Folks around here don't raise sheep for wool, they raise ’em for meat. Where do you suppose your Ma gets lamb chops, if it ain't from animals?”

Allison swallowed. She thought of the tender chops which Constance sometimes cooked and served from a platter decorated with parsley.

“Aren't you freezing, Joey?” she asked, to change the subject.

She huddled herself down in her warm coat and dug her fingers into the soft lamb's wool.

“Naw. I'm used to it,” said Joey, wiping his nose. “My feet's tough.”

But just the same, he shivered and Allison saw the duck bumps on his thin arms. She had a sudden, embarrassing urge to take Joey and pull him close to her, to hide him under her coat and warm him with her body.

“What's Selena doing?” she asked, not looking at Joey.

“Making a pot of coffee for Pa, I guess. He just came in from the woods before you got here.”

“Oh? Isn't your mother home?”

“Naw. Today's Saturday. She goes down to Harrington's to wax the floors on Saturday.”

“Oh, yes. I'd forgotten,” said Allison. “Well, I guess I'll go out front to wait for Selena.”

“Come on out back,” said Joey. “I'll show you my lizard.”

“All right.”

They walked out of the sheep pen and Joey led the way toward the rear of the house.

“I keep him in a box up on the window ledge,” said Joey. “Here, stand up on this crate and you can see right into the box. I got holes punched in it so's he can breathe.”

Allison stood up on the wooden crate which Joey upended and peered into the box that had holes punched in it. When she raised her eyes for a moment, she looked right into the Cross kitchen.

So
this
is what the inside of a shack looks like, thought Allison, fascinated. Her eyes took in the unmade cots and the sagging double bed and the dirty dishes which seemed to be strewn from one end of the room to the other. She saw a garbage can in one corner which had not been emptied for a long time, and on the floor next to it was an empty can that had once held tomatoes and one that had contained beans. Lucas was sitting at a table that was covered with a streaked oil cloth so old and filthy that the pattern in it was no longer discernible, and Selena was filling a coffeepot from a pail of water, with a long-handled dipper. Allison thought of the houses in town that Nellie Cross kept spotless, and she remembered the food she had eaten in various homes that had been cooked by Selena's mother.

“Reckon you're gettin’ to be quite a gal, makin’ coffee for your old pa,” said Lucas.

Allison could hear every word through the thin walls as clearly as if she had been in the same room. She knew that she should get down from the packing crate and stop eavesdropping, but she was held still by something in Lucas’ face, a sly and evil something that held her motionless, just as a horror movie holds a frightened child to his theater seat in spite of his fear.

Lucas Cross was a big man with a chest like a barrel and a disconcertingly square-shaped head. His lank hair lay in strings on his broad skull, and when he smiled his whole forehead moved grotesquely.

“Yep,” said Lucas. “Quite a gal. How old're you now?”

“Fourteen, Pa,” said Selena.

“Yep. Quite a gal.”

“That's sure some lizard, ain't it?” asked Joey, happy that Allison was so fascinated with his pet.

“Yes,” said Allison, and Joey smiled and bent to pick up a stone.

He threw it toward the pine trees beyond the clearing, then bent to pick up another.

Lucas got up from the table and went to a shelf over the sink. Allison wondered what in the world the Crosses had a sink for, when they had neither running water nor sewerage. Lucas took a bottle from the shelf and held it to his lips while Allison watched. The brown liquid flowed in an unbroken stream down Lucas’ throat, and he did not stop swallowing until the bottle was empty. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tossed the bottle over his shoulder into a far corner of the shack.

“We got a trash can, Pa,” said Selena disapprovingly. “There's no need to go throwing stuff all over the place.”

“Well, well, well,” said Lucas. “Miss High and Mighty herself! You gettin’ fancy ideas from your little prune-faced friend Allison MacKenzie?”

“No, Pa,” said Selena. “I just don't see that there's any call for throwing things on the floor when there's a trash can right beside you. It wouldn't do any harm to take that garbage out and bury it, either.”

Lucas grabbed Selena's arm. “Listen, you,” he snarled. “Don't you be tryin’ to tell your pa what to do.”

Selena stood very still and looked down at the hand on her arm. Her dark, gypsy eyes seemed to grow darker and to narrow slightly.

“Take your hand off me, Pa,” she said at last, so softly that Allison could barely hear the words.

Lucas Cross slapped his stepdaughter a stunning blow on the side of the head. Selena staggered halfway across the room and fell heavily to the floor, while outside, Allison grabbed onto the window ledge to keep from falling off the crate on which she stood.

“Oh, Joey,” she whispered frantically. “What shall we do?”

But Joey had run to the edge of the trees and was busily tossing pine cones at a squirrel.

Allison knew she should stop looking in the window, but she literally could not move. She had never seen a man strike anyone in her life, and she was held now by a terrible fear.

Selena got up from the floor, and the coffeepot which she had not dropped when she fell now flew across the room in a direct line with Lucas’ head.

“Oh, no, no, Selena,” whispered Allison. “Hell kill you,” and she was puzzled that Selena did not look up at the window, for Allison thought she had screamed her words.

The coffeepot sailed past Lucas’ head and crashed against the wall behind him.

“You little bitch,” he shouted. “You goddamn little bitch. I'll teach you!”

He held Selena with one hand and slapped her face. Back and forth, back and forth went his big hand. Selena fought with all her strength. She kicked and tried to get close enough to Lucas to sink her teeth into him.

“You bastard!” she yelled.

“Reg'lar dirty-mouthed little bitch,” said Lucas. “Just like your old lady. I'll teach you, same's I taught her! Don't do no good to be decent to you. If it wasn't for me you'da starved to death, just like your old lady. I been decent to you just as if you was my own. Kept a roof over your head and food in your belly.”

Back and forth, back and forth went his enormous hand, striking another blow with every word he spoke.

At last Selena managed to tear herself away from him. She drew back her fist and slammed it into Lucas’ mouth as hard as she could, and the man yelped with rage. He wiped the trickle of blood from his chin and looked stupidly at the red stain on his fingers. He cursed unintelligibly, and his face was a terrible, congested purple. Allison waited hysterically for his next move.

“You goddamn’ sonofabitch,” roared Lucas, beside himself. “You goddamn whorin’ little slut!”

He grabbed at Selena and when she wrenched away from his grasp, he was left holding the entire front of the girl's blouse. Selena backed away from Lucas, her breasts naked and heaving in the light of the room's unshaded electric bulb, her shoulders still covered ridiculously by the sleeves of the faded cotton blouse.

Why the ends of hers are
brown,
thought Allison foolishly. And she does not wear a brassière all the time, like she told me!

Lucas dropped his hands and stared at Selena. Slowly, he began to walk toward her while she, just as slowly, began to move backward. She kept moving until her buttocks hit the black sink, and she never took her eyes from Lucas’ face.

“Yep,” said Lucas, “you're gettin’ to be quite a gal, honey.”

Slowly, he raised his two grimy hands, and his forehead moved when he smiled his grotesque smile.

Selena's scream ripped the stillness with a sound like tearing fabric, and from behind Allison there came another scream. It was Joey, running frantically toward the door of the shack. He almost fell through the door, and still he screamed.

“Don't you dare put your hands on Selena! I'll kill you if you put your hands on Selena.”

The little boy stood in front of his sister, and like a horse swishing his tail, Lucas Cross swept him away. The child lay still on the floor of the shack, and Lucas said, “Yep. Gettin’ to be quite a gal, ain't you, honey.”