Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [75]
Have another drink before you go. Stay and tell me more.
Oh, yes. Oh, my yes. Can t you just see me? No, I better go while the going s good. Oh, I don t mean that the way it sounds, Mr. English, but people talk so much in this town. Julian had a quick recollection of a story about the Baptist minister s daughter going without stockings. Unwillingly he looked at her legs, and she apprehended the look. That s it, she said. You heard it yourself. I ll never live it down, going without stockings. It s all right in front of Queen Mary, but not in Gibbsville. Well, thanks again. See you again some time.
Don t go, he said. Unaccountably he liked her. More than that, he didn’t want her to put on her glasses. She wasn’t bad-looking. She wasn’t pretty. But she wasn’t bad-looking, and she had an interesting figure; not sensationally good, but you could have fun with it. He hated himself, but he had an enormous desire to discover this girl. What time is it? she said. It isn’t even ten o clock. It s still in the nine class. Nine-thirty-five, nine-thirty-seven, something like that. It s very early.
Well, one more drink, although why you want me to stay I don t know. I look a wreck. Haven t even been home from the office. She gazed around the room, just getting ready to sit down, and then she said: Mr. English, I d feel a thousand per cent better if you d let me wash my hands.
Oh, I m terribly sorry. I ll show you.
Just tell me where it is, I ll find it.
I better show you. There s no light, I don t think.
This is terribly embarrassing, or would be if you weren t so nice. I always feel more at ease with a married man. Tell you the truth, my back teeth are floating.
He was shocked and he was glad it was too dark for her to see his face. Either that one drink had had an unusual effect, or little Miss Cartwright who was not little, but rather reedy could turn out to be fun. He lit the lights and then came downstairs and made himself a drink. He heard her, and then he saw her coming down the stairs, slowly now; step by step, at ease. Her steps might have meant self-confidence, in which case he did not like it and did not like her. He wanted to seduce this girl, but he wanted to do it because he was able to through experience and superior knowledge. He didn’t want her to have anything to do with it except to acquiesce. Still, she was near-sighted or something. That might explain the way she walked. Rye and ginger ale, he said. Right, she said. She sat down, and now he was sure it was confidence. He almost laughed in her face. She was not a girl who would be included in anyone s list of attractive damsels, but she had as much confidence at this moment as Norma Shearer or Peggy Joyce or somebody. He knew now that she was not a virgin, no matter what he had thought ever before; and while he made a drink for her he imagined the ridiculous scene with probably a veterinary student with two or three scholastic keys and fraternity pins on his vest the rush of life in the direction of Miss Cartwright, and the quick rush away. He wondered how old she was, and he asked her as he handed her her drink. Old enough to know better, and then, I m twenty-three. Why do you ask that? Just curiosity or what?
The Big Ten confidence. What, probably. I don t know. I just wondered. I couldn’t make an accurate guess myself, so I asked you.
That s refreshing nowadays. Now how old are you?
Thirty.
That s what I thought. I thought about twenty-eight, but you go around with so much older people that I thought in a town like this you oh, I don t know what I thought. It doesn