Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [51]
Very little.
Did he do you remember going to a place where a man and a woman you know?
I think so. I m afraid so.
That s where he took me, too. I thought I d die when I went with him. I don t understand him. I wasn’t nearly so drunk as you were. I remember. Every detail. But I can t understand Henry. He never touched me. All he did was to keep watching me. He didn’t watch them, just me. I think he must have got pleasure out of the effect it had on me, those people. I don t think we d better see that crowd again, that he goes around with. He wants me to go again and he wants you to come.
God, I feel so terrible. Do you think he did anything to me? said Caroline. Oh, no. I m sure he didn t. He gets some kind of pleasure out of watching us. There are people like that. You never went the limit, did you, Callie?
No.
Neither did I, and I think someone like Henry can tell that just by looking at you. I really do.
Then why does he oh, I wish I were home.
Don t worry. You notice he didn’t ask Lib. I ve thought for years that Lib had an affair, probably more than one. So you and I are together on this. Just don t say anything about it to Lib, and if Henry becomes too insistent we can leave Paris. Can I get you some aspirin or something?
Caroline had had her scare, and she got drunk no more. For the rest of her trip she traded nothing but her dancing ability for the attentions of the English-speaking young men who were attracted to her; and for a year after that the frightening experience with Henry What s His Name, and the disillusioning and humiliating experience with Joe Montgomery dictated her preference in men: they had to be clean, preferably blond, and not in the least glamorous or unusually attractive. Back home, she had nothing to do in Gibbsville except to play bridge with the girls in the afternoon bridge clubs, and the mixed clubs in the evening; to take a course in shorthand and typewriting at the Gibbsville Business College, with vague notions of a winter in New York in the front of her mind; to turn out for the Tuesday women s golf tournament-and-luncheon; to wheedle contributions on the various tag days; to act as chauffeuse for her mother, who could not learn to drive a combustion-engine car; to give her share of parties. She kept her weight under 115 pounds. She bobbed her hair. She drank a little more than the sociable amount, and she grew mildly profane. She came to know herself to be the most attractive of the Lantenengo Street girls. Without getting the rush that the girls still in school would get at dances, she still was more universally popular; the boys in the school crowd danced with her and so did the males of all ages up to forty, and a few did who were more than forty. She never had to pretend that she was having a better time sitting with a highball than she did on the dance floor. The girls she knew liked her without calling her a good sport or trusting her too far with their husbands or fianc?. They really did trust her, but they did not trust their men. At the beginning of the summer of 1926 she recapitulated, and acknowledged that she was getting a little hard. She saw most frequently Julian English, Harry Reilly, Carter Davis, and a man from Scranton named Ross Campbell. Julian English was a habit, and she suspected that he went on seeing her because she never said anything about his Polish girl, who was reputed to be beautiful, but whom no one had seen. Harry Reilly was lavish and considerate; in his way, so crazy about her that he was almost self-effacing. Carter Davis was too predictable; she was certain she could tell how many years it would be before the day came when Carter stopped drinking and trying to pick up Irish girls after church Sunday night, and settled down and married a Lantenengo Street girl. But it won’t be me, she said. Imagine life with a man whose deepest passion was bridge. And the Philadelphia Athletics. And the Cornell football team. God! Ross Campbell was the most likely prospect for marriage. He was older than the others except Reilly, and he