Saturday Night (7 page)

Beyond lay the dance floor.

No d.j. for this dance! A live band, dressed in Anne’s colors: electric screaming royal blue, threaded with silver, flashing with rhinestones, instruments gleaming in the musicians’ hands. The drummer nodded hypnotically over his drums. The singer’s mouth was wed to his mike.

Above them were no autumn leaves. The ceiling was hung with stars of mylar, and the lighting pointed up and the stars glistened. A break in the forest … a setting for romance.

Anne and Con were instantly the center of action. For the first time Anne realized that it was Con who attracted the groups of kids, not herself. She was not participating; she simply stood there while Con hugged her waist, tugging her close, releasing her, tugging her close again, at whatever beat the drummer set.

She was terribly aware that all these people saying hello, and laughing, and clapping Con on the shoulder were
his
friends, or perhaps
their
friends, but none of them were
her
friends. Oh, Con, she thought, choking with fear, oh Con, don’t be mad at me, don’t leave me, I have no one else, I can’t go home and face my mother and my grandmother without you,
oh, Con, please. …

Into her hair Con whispered, “
Smile
.”

She smiled. She said the right things. She even managed to laugh at the appropriate moments. I’m pregnant, she thought at them. What would you do if I told you that? Would you laugh like Con? Would you say, don’t be ridiculous, Anne, you’re perfect, you don’t do things like that?

Maybe that’s what people normally do when somebody tells them something they don’t want to hear, Anne thought. What would I say in Con’s place? If he said to me,
Your father’s dead. Your house burned down. Your country is at war. Would I say, Don’t be ridiculous, Con. Stop trying to ruin my evening.

“If I know Kip,” said Con, “there’s enough food for an army tonight. Let’s go pig out.”

She could barely talk, let alone swallow food. She nodded brightly, and a whole crowd of them headed for the scarlet path. Kip’s arrangement forced them to walk only two abreast, and they marched, like soldiers, headed for food. Everybody joked.

Not one person noticed anything wrong with Anne. She had never been so aware that she was merely Con’s girl, not Anne Stephens. As long as Con laughed, they would just assume she was laughing, too. They would never really look to see.

Never in her life had Beth Rose Chapman done anything so difficult as walk down that corridor after Anne and Con. The closeness of them! The way Con had his arm around her. The way he paused to brush his lips over her burnished gold hair and whispered lovingly.

Beth’s heart hurt. I don’t have that kind of love, she thought. Did I think I was going to come here and find it waiting for me, like a package on layaway?

She could hide out in the lavatory for two hours, telephone home, fib about the dance.

“After you,” said a gallant male voice, and Con laughed and took Anne ahead of another couple. Beth Rose drew inexorably nearer. The other couple were Molly and some older, handsome, wonderful-looking guy.

“What a beautiful dress!” exclaimed Molly, as Beth Rose came up to them.

Molly, who could get boys the way Beth could get ducks when she flung stale bread into the pond. “Here, duck, duck, duck,” Beth would call, and the ducks came. “Here, boys, boys, boys,” Molly would call, and the boys came.

“Thank you,” Beth said.

Molly’s eyes had been on the dress exclusively; she had not so much as bothered to look high enough to see who was wearing it. If Beth had kept silent she would have been all right. Now Molly glanced at her. “Why, Beth,” she said sweetly. “I didn’t expect to see
you
at the dance.”

Of course not. Beth was the last person a boy would think of asking. Don’t ask me where my date is, prayed Beth.

Molly said, “Where’s your date? Who’d you come with?”

Beth thought up a good lie, rehearsed it, and accidentally said, “I came alone.”

Molly stared at her. “Alone?” she repeated, as if this were a crime. She turned to her date. “Chrissie, darling,” she said, “you’ve got to dance once with Bethie. Just once. Promise me now. It’ll make her evening. Promise?”

“Okay,” said Christopher. “She can be my good deed for the night.” He howled with laughter.

You don’t die of humiliation, Beth thought. You suffer over and over.

Molly and Christopher sauntered through the rose arbor, Molly flouncing, Christopher lurching.

Beth followed them quickly, slipping in and over to the side, escaping the photographer’s attention.

“You’re shaking all over,” said Matt. “I guess you got pretty wet after all. Shrug off that coat, because it must be wet through, and get closer to the heater.”

She was shivering because of him: his nearness, his presence. But she shrugged off the coat, as he had told her, because now her skin would be bare and she wanted him to touch her.

What would the other kids at the dance think when she and Matt walked in? Would they figure he was some cousin taking pity on her? Or decide Emily had finally blossomed and richly deserved this great guy?

“You know,” said Matt, “I’m just driving along here. I don’t have any idea where I am or where I’m going. You want me to turn off this road or shall we just cruise all night long?”

She laughed and looked around for landmarks. It was surprisingly hard to figure out where they were. The rain was
thick
. How could rain be thick? “We’ve gone past the turn we should have taken,” she said. “Well, don’t turn around. Keep going. We’ll take another way. Go past this intersection, and down there, where that truck is, turn left.”

“I obey, my lady,” said Matt, gently touching her bare shoulder and moving away from her as if it stung. Emily understood. It stung her, too, sending threads of desire through her like a sticky web.

He has to have a girlfriend back home, Emily thought. How could he not have one? Is he taking me to this dance on the sly? Cheating on her? Or is he between girls, and I’m good filler on a dull weekend?

“So one thing I know for sure, Emily,” Matt said. “You don’t like student government conferences. What
do
you like? I was talking to my mother before I left tonight and she says, ‘So what are you two going to talk about?’ and I said, ‘Beats me,’ and my father said, ‘Find out what she’s interested in and talk about that.’ So give me a list. What are you interested in?”

She giggled. “The world. Truth, beauty, and the meaning of life. Also, baseball, crosswords, and saxophone.”

“Emily,” said Matt, turning left where she pointed, “I think we have a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“We have absolutely nothing in common. I do not care about truth, beauty, or the meaning of life; I am interested in ice hockey, cars, and rock music.”

“We’ll compromise,” said Emily. “I’ll skip crossword puzzles if you’ll skip ice hockey.”

He took her left hand in his right. Putting his right hand back on the steering wheel, he drove with her hand like padding. “We’ll begin with cars,” he said. “I own seven of them.”

“
Seven
?”

“I’m restoring them. My father helped me pay for them. I’m learning body work as well as engines. It’s a good investment and if we’re lucky they’ll pay for college. Assuming I go to college. I’d rather do something with cars. Be a mechanic for a racing team.”

“Where do you keep all those cars?” said Emily. “You must have an enormous garage.”

“Nope. Spread out all over the backyard. The neighbors hate us. My mother isn’t too thrilled, either.” Matt grinned and squeezed her hand. “But hey, I’m happy.”

“Crossword puzzles take up less room,” Emily said.

“Yeah, but you have to know how to spell and I—”

The lightning Emily had feared all her life struck.

Their car came around a curve, dipping low, and ahead of them something metallic, something large and indistinguishable blocked the way. Lightning—a huge horrible jagged hot white sheet of it—filled the sky and the car, and its thunder filled her ears and her soul.

Emily screamed.

Matt jammed on the brakes.

They both were flung forward, with no seat belt between them and the dashboard or the windshield.

The sound of tearing metal and crushing rock closed Emily’s mind, and her own scream deafened her.

And then there was silence.

S
HE HAD TAKEN REFUGE
between a wheelbarrow and a haystack, and two chaperones stood there also. Perhaps they thought it would be a good place to nip mischief in the act. They exclaimed over Beth’s dress. It was a temporary sort of conversation; they expected her boyfriend to appear immediately.

Beth Rose could not bear another look of pity.

She walked away from them.

Her stomach ceased to churn and knot. It became a solid hard object, like something requiring surgery.
That
would be a way out of this. Ambulance. Perhaps she would require resuscitation. Any emergency room on any Saturday night would be better than this.

Beth Rose faced the dance.

Oh, but Kip had done a wonderful job! The room was romantic beyond imagining. And everyone there dressed so beautifully, paired up so perfectly, smiling so happily.

Beth Rose walked to the fountain. She had no change with her—something, it now occurred to her, that was going to making phoning her mother very difficult. Mentally she chose a silver coin and tossed her wish into the fountain. The band began playing a hot wild piece that everybody knew; it had been number two or three for weeks now, struggling for first place. Beth ached to dance to it. A fast dance in Aunt Madge’s dress. She couldn’t picture it. But, oh, to try!

In the shadows on the far side of the fountain stood a boy. Dark in his formal suit, he was like a shadow himself. Beth Rose dreamed on him, and when he detached himself from the shadows, and walked toward her, it seemed like part of the dream.

It was Gary Anthony. Beth could only smile at herself. If there was ever a boy on whom she could have a crush, it would be Gary. She didn’t allow herself crushes. They hurt too much, for nothing ever came of them. The boy never noticed her, let alone returned her feelings.

Gary was a senior for whom school was a necessary evil, and for him graduation would be a great relief. Undoubtedly he would enter his father’s thriving restaurant business. Beth loved eating there on the off chance she might see Gary. For he was remarkably handsome. A lot of boys became handsome once you got to know them, because their personalities were intertwined with their features, and you could no longer tell, once you liked them, where one began and the other left off. But Gary was handsome by anybody’s definition. His hair was dark and extremely curly; he had dark eyes, fair skin, and a surprisingly sweet smile. She couldn’t remember hearing Gary laugh. He simply smiled, or for an especially funny occasion, grinned. She knew girls who practiced funny stories to tell Gary, just to get that grin.

He wasn’t tall, but because he was on track and wrestling teams he was much more muscular than most boys his age. She had never seen him dressed up before. She thought of him exclusively in old jeans, a soft old shirt, and one of two pullover sweaters—an ivory fisherman’s knit, and a navy cotton crew. How absurd, thought Beth Rose. I know his entire wardrobe.

Gary walked toward her.

She watched him as if they were on film. When he spoke she was astonished. She had forgotten he was real. “Beth Rose?” he said questioningly.

“Hello, Gary,” she said.

They stared at each other. His soft dark eyes moved very slowly down the dress, looking at the lace, the softly falling folds of pale pale pink, the tips of slippers showing beneath the hem. He looked at her hair, and her earrings, and then into her eyes. He said, “You look wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

She could neither move nor think. She simply smiled at him; his smile—sweet, but revealing nothing.

He said, “Are you waiting for somebody, Beth Rose?”

She had never thought her two names went well together. The names took too long to say, they were awkward; most people were reluctant to bother. When she was little, the other little kids shortened it to Brose. Now they didn’t bother; they said Beth—if they said anything at all.

For the first time in her life, Beth Rose Chapman flirted. “I’m waiting for you,” she said. They stood very still.

The band played so fiercely she thought the light fixtures might explode under the pressure of the sound.

Couples entered the dance behind Beth, split like rivers over rocks in the water to get past them, and circled the fountain. Gary said softly, “My good luck.” He curled his fingers around hers, moved so gracefully to her side it was like an old-fashioned dance step, and began walking her toward the fountain. From his pocket he drew pennies, and handed her one. “Make a wish.” It was a command. I wanted this to happen so much that I’m fantasizing right during the dance, Beth Rose thought. Actually, Gary isn’t standing here and I don’t have a penny in my hand. People are calling the ambulance for me, but not because of the knot in my stomach. They’re going to lock me in a padded room.

Gary’s hand, with the penny, stayed in hers. His hand was warm and rough and not as large as she would have expected. Her own hand was much slimmer, much paler, but their fingers were the same length. Her nails, painted deep rose, reflected in his palm. She tossed the penny.

I wish for Gary all night long.

The penny fell into the shallows. It lay among the other pennies, and after she blinked, she could no longer tell which penny it was.

In a normal voice, Gary said, “I’m starving. Are you? Let’s see what Kip planned for food, huh? My dad catered some of it, but I eat that stuff all the time. Let’s see what else there is.”

Gary Anthony. Talking to her as if she really were his date.

Beth Rose glided down the scarlet path with him, her dress rustling against his legs, her hand still in his.

Molly looked up from Christopher, with whom she seemed to be having trouble, and her jaw fell. Sue and her date, Page and her date, Caitlin and her date—they all stared. Each girl turned to the others and Beth fancied she could read their lips. Is that Beth Rose? With Gary?