Saturday Night (12 page)

Fathers.

To Kip the word “father” meant her own: forty, getting bald, teaching her to drive, gearing up to pay for her college tuition. But when Anne said “father” she meant Con.
Con!

“I thought he’d come after me,” said Anne. “I thought he’d want to be alone, too, and follow me out of the dance.”

“This is the girls’ bathroom,” pointed out Kip. “No matter how much he wants to talk he won’t follow you here.”

“He won’t follow me anywhere,” said Anne dully.

“Do your parents know? Does anybody else know?”

“Only Con.” Anne leaned against the wall. How thin she looked. Kip found her eyes floating toward Anne’s waist, and lower, trying to imagine both the conception and creation of a real person who was half Anne, half Con. Kip couldn’t. Could Anne? Did Anne feel different inside? Could she feel this little person—or was it just cells bunched up together, presenting more problems than Anne knew how to handle?

If you wanted to go that way, there was one easy solution. If Anne felt like it, the whole thing could be ended without her parents and grandmother ever knowing.

But those were questions Kip could not quite manage.

“I haven’t told my parents and my grandmother,” whispered Anne. “They think I’m perfect. They’ll hate me. And Con won’t be with me when I have to tell them. He’s mad at me. That’s his only response to this. Mad at me, as if I’m the only one around, and he didn’t do a thing. Oh, Kip, I trusted him completely to be the most important person in my life—and now I know differently. Whatever decision I make—whatever I do about this pregnancy—he won’t be there.
I’ll be alone.
”

That’s the sentence, Kip thought. That’s the one we’re all so scared of. It isn’t the being pregnant that panics her as much as the being alone. And do I know how that feels! Worst punishment on earth, I suppose, to be alone. Wounds don’t heal without friends and love. “Oh, Anne,” she said softly. “Oh, Anne, I’m so sorry. It sounds so awful.”

Anne began to cry again, terrible sobs that came out of her as if attached to her lungs: sobs that came protesting, bleeding, wrenched from Anne’s throat.

She clung to Kip, because there was no other help there. What if somebody walks in on us like this? thought Kip, trying to comfort Anne with pats and hugs—Anne whose life was a shambles, for whom the only good hug would be one from Con.

She had a slight sense that maybe the door
had
just opened.

While Anne sobbed, had Kip heard a creak?

Had there been a click while Anne talked?

Kip looked over her shoulder. The bathroom door was closed. It was much too heavy and too tight to listen through.

But had somebody already been there?

And edged out, not wanting to witness a scene?

Or heard it all … and left … hugging the gossip to herself, ready to spread across a roomful of fascinated listeners?

E
MILY’S FATHER BROUGHT HER
favorite jeans, her favorite slate blue cotton turtleneck, and her beloved gray-blue tweed pullover with the cables. She’d worn this so often it was practically a uniform.

“I don’t know if those jeans will pull up over the bandage,” said the nurse doubtfully, but Emily had no trouble. The pant legs were wider than they were fashionable.

Emily stared at herself in the mirror.

She was dull and bedraggled. Her hair, vigorously toweled by one of the aides, was nearly dry, and hung the way it always did when given no attention: nearly straight, but not quite. A wrinkled look, actually, as though there was something wrong with her.

No makeup. No color whatsoever in her cheeks. No eyelashes, of course, because Emily’s were invisible without mascara.

And because she always wore those jeans and sweater, she looked faded, as if she’d been standing there for years in the same clothes.

“Okay, sweetie,” said her father when she was dressed, and in front of all the emergency room staff, he hugged her. Emily was surprised. He was undemonstrative at the best of times, and she could not remember a hug in front of people.

Slowly she was aware that he hardly noticed all these other people. He was looking only at her. This is the way Anne Stephens’ family always looks, Emily thought. This is how it feels to have your parent look at you and think you’re perfect.

But oh, the price!

“You saved a man’s life,” her father said. “I know how scared you’ve always been of lightning. I have to admit, Emily, it always annoyed me.”

The young woman doctor looked very sympathetic. The two nurses paused to listen.

Emily thought of death.

In English class it seemed to her half the poems, plays, and stories they studied dealt with death. She had written essays about it, and analyzed some poet’s view of it. But now she knew she had never given death a moment’s thought.

She tried to feel Matt as dead.

Gone.

Forever gone. Transformed, perhaps into something else—or simply vanished, as if he had never been.

She could not grasp it. It loomed before her: horrific, strong, terrible—yet meaningless. How could death possibly have anything to do with her, Emily, in blue jeans and a cable knit sweater?

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so proud of you,” said her father huskily, and he hugged her again, and this time his arms stayed around her. The hug didn’t scare him off the way it usually did. He kept on hugging, as if to preserve his daughter from the death she, too, had nearly had.

Emily began to cry.

“Because you went through the lightning to save him, honey,” said her father. “Through the dark. Never thinking about your own safety, or what would happen to you if you got hit. You just ran, and saved the fellow’s life.”

“But Daddy, I did worry!” Emily burst out. “I was so scared. Every moment I was terrified. I was crying. And it was my dress I was worried about, not that man. I wasn’t a heroine. I just did it by accident. And I was never brave.”

It was the doctor who hugged her this time. “That’s what courage is, Emily. To keep going when you’re scared. To sacrifice your dress, when the dress really matters, because that’s what you have to do. I’m impressed, too.” The doctor smiled gently. “And proud.”

“You don’t even know me,” said Emily, weeping again.

“Oh, but we do know you. We’ve seen you at the worst moment of your life, Emily, and you’re wonderful. We love you.”

Emily stared at the doctor. She means it, Emily thought. She loves me. It is possible to love a person you’ve known only for a minute, someone whose life is completely unknown to you. She is proud of me. As if I represented—oh—humanity, or something!

“Not as much as I love you,” Matt’s voice said.

Emily looked up.

Matt, grinning, his hair standing up damp and bristly like a porcupine. Matt, not a scratch on him. Matt, wearing clothing that looked totally wrong yet oddly familiar.

Emily’s father and the doctor let go of her, and Matt bounded forward to give Emily an extremely tight hug. She gasped. He hugged her as if shaking hands with an important person: like sealing a bond.

“Matt. I thought you were dead.”

“Me? Why would I be dead?”

For the life of her, Emily could not remember why she had come to the conclusion that he was. But who cares? she thought. What matters now is that Matt is alive! Alive—and—

And I look awful. The worst of my life. “I look awful,” said Emily.

The entire room full of people began to laugh: doctor, father, nurses’ aides, and Matt.

Emily glared at them. “It’s true,” she said huffily. “After all that energy spent on fixing my hair and getting the perfect dress, I look awful.”

“What matters is, how do you feel?” said Matt.

“Pretty good.”

“Then let’s go on to the dance.”

“I’m wearing blue jeans,” she protested. “It’s a formal dance.”

“So? We certainly have good excuses for looking like this. My father and grandfather are driving down to get the Ford. Dad’ll drive on home in his car and Granddad will drive the Ford home, so we don’t have to worry about the car.”

Emily could truly say she had never worried about the car. All she could think of was facing people like Anne Stephens or Molly Nelmes, who would look fantastic, when Emily, who was rather plain to start with, now had nothing going for her at all.

“My foot is totally anesthetized,” she said slowly. “I could probably dance all night and never know it.”

The doctor snorted. “You’d know it in the morning,” she said. “If you really feel up to attending the dance, sit down all evening with your foot elevated, is that clear?”

“We’ll be fine as long as my pants don’t fall down,” said Matt.

Emily stared at him.

“They’re your father’s jeans,” he explained. “And your father’s shirt, sweater, shoes, and socks. All a little big. I’m sort of wading as I walk.”

“Well, that settles it. I cannot go to the first formal of my entire life with a man who is wading in his clothing and my hair is wrinkled,” said Emily, not very clearly.

“Sure you can.” Matt was grinning from ear to ear: a big sloppy puppy grin, his eyes crinkled to nothing. It wiped Emily out, of course. “Heroines can do anything,” Matt told her. “People love them in spite of it. Heroines can carry off anything in public, and people are just filled with respect.”

I’m a heroine? thought Emily. “No, you were a hero,” she corrected him. “You were the one who actually saved his life.”

“You can argue about it in the car,” said Mr. Edmundson. “If I’m the one driving you two around, I’d like to get started.”

Emily saw herself reflected in her father’s and Matt’s eyes. I did go through the storm, she thought. I did conquer the thing I’m most afraid of on earth. And I am with a boy who thinks I’m pretty wonderful.

She gave Matt her arm. “Wade on,” she said, and they laughed together, and Matt kissed her and this time it was not a kiss of fear, or comfort, or relief.

It was a kiss of love.

Beth and Gary left the rose arbor very slowly, his arm around her waist, consciously on exhibit. People grinned at them, and Beth smiled back, feeling like Princess Diana acknowledging the waves of her loyal subjects. Gary wanted to find Con and Anne again. Fine with Beth. There was certainly no nicer pair in the school.

When they found Con, he was standing halfway between the band and the food, as if stranded.

“What’s the matter?” Gary asked.

“Anne disappeared,” Con said irritably.

“Probably found somebody better,” Gary said cheerfully. It was something easy to say, since in this case it was so impossible.

Con laughed.

Oh to be that close! Beth Rose thought. To know that the person you love could not possibly find anybody better than you.

She sat quietly. Con and Gary talked. They both enjoyed car racing and they’d been up at the same stock car race in Waterford, without seeing each other. “Anne go with you to that?” asked Gary with interest. “Most girls don’t usually like that stuff.”

Beth wanted to say that
she
liked that stuff, but then Gary would want to know what car races she’d been to, and the answer was “none.” Or then again he might say, “Well, then, you and I will have to go sometime, huh, Beth?” And Con would smile, too, and say, “You two going out now?” and Gary would say. …

But Gary was still talking to Con, and Beth had not spoken, and the conversation was all her private fantasy.

I’m tired of fantasy, Beth thought. I’d like a little reality for a change.

“Beth,” said Con, rather sharply, as if she had offended.

Beth jumped.

“Listen,” he said. Again rather sharply, as if he was accusing her of purposely not listening to him.

“Anne’s been in the girls’ room forever,” Con said. “Would you go see if she’s sick or something?” He frowned. “She felt kind of crummy earlier this evening.”

Beth was struck by his tone of voice. He sounded more annoyed than worried, as if Anne feeling crummy was a real nuisance. She put the thought away. She loved thinking of Anne and Con together. She didn’t want a single feeling that their relationship was less than perfect. When
I
have a boyfriend, it’ll be perfect, she told herself.

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She got up.

Gary smiled at her vaguely. He and Con went back to discussing race cars.

And Beth knew she was making a fatal mistake. As long as she was right there, Gary would stay with her. He was too courteous to abandon her outright—or possibly too lazy. But once she walked out of his sight … he would be gone.

She did not know how she knew this.

After all, until a few hours ago she had known Gary only by sight and reputation. As for the beginning of the evening, it still had a dreamlike quality; the two hours had slid by with such speed it was difficult to believe the big white and black clock on the cafeteria wall.

Thirty feet away from the boys, Beth Rose stopped walking, and looked back. Be watching me, Gary! she begged.

But he was not.

Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. No matter how graceful I feel, no matter how perfectly this dress fits me, no matter how beautifully Aunt Madge fixed my hair, he still isn’t watching. He’s a hundred times more important to me than I am to him.

Go back right now, Beth Rose, she told herself. Go back. Forget about finding Anne. If there was ever a girl at Westerly High who could take care of herself it’s Anne Stephens. You walk away now, you’ll lose Gary because he’ll forget about you. You’ll be alone.

But she could think of no excuse to give Con or Gary for returning without having looked for Anne.

She kept walking toward the girls’ room, and the next time she glanced over her shoulder, there were too many of Kip’s autumn props between her and the boys to see Gary.

Three people stopped her to tell her how lovely she looked.

Don’t chat with me, I have to hurry! thought Beth Rose, edging away from them. But they were special people—important people—people she had always yearned to be friends with: Pammy, and Caitlin, and Sue, and their dates. Such nice girls! And she knew they had noticed her because of Gary.