Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [112]
They stopped in the Badger Pass ski lodge, warmed themselves by a great log fire, and drank hot buttered rum. May took off her ski cap and shook out her hair over her green woolen jacket; and there was no man in the room who did not stare, and few ladies who could resist a brief annoyed appraisal. Willie felt most colossally pleased with himself. “What do you see in me, I wonder?” he said, halfway through his second hot buttered rum. “A glorious girl like you? What is there about me that’s worth crossing the country for?”
“First you answer a question for me. Why did you introduce me to your mother as Marie Minotti? You haven’t used that name since the day we met.”
Willie stared at the red smoky flames in the fireplace, and searched his mind for a pleasant answer. He had wondered himself at the impulse that had brought May’s real name to his tongue, and had discovered an unpalatable reason for it: the fact that, underneath all his powerful desire for May, he was ashamed of her. The thought of her origin, of the Bronx fruit store, of her grimy illiterate parents, had possessed him in the presence of his mother. At that moment, May had been Marie Minotti. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just seemed right to tell Mom your real name, and start off on an honest footing. I didn’t think much about it.”
“I see. May I have another hot buttered rum? The last. I’m a little dizzy. Possibly from all this fresh air.”
“If you want,” she said, when Willie returned and handed her the drink, “I can tell you what a glorious girl like me sees in you.”
“Fine. What?” Willie nestled complacently beside her.
“Nothing.”
“I see.” He buried his nose in his glass.
“I mean it. I’ve been trapped. In the beginning you seemed so fumbling and harmless to me, I just let myself enjoy your company, thinking nothing would come of it. And then they dragged you off to Furnald Hall, and with you carrying all those demerits I felt sorry for you, and it seemed patriotic to cheer you up, and furthermore I swear you must have appealed to my mother instinct-although I never thought I had one. Well, the whole thing just went on and on, and got to be a habit, and now here we are. I was a damn fool to come out here, and I’m going straight home day after tomorrow. I don’t like what’s happening. I feel as though I’d slipped and broken a leg.”
Willie said lazily, “You’re fascinated by my mind.”
“Just remember, pal,” said May, “I’ve had freshman English now. And I’ve done a hell of a lot of reading. I can talk about Dickens all you want, and probably top you. Go ahead, say something. What do you think of Bleak House?”
“Never read it, matter of fact,” said Willie with a yawn. “That’s one I missed. Nice and warm by this fire, you know?”
“Let’s get out of here,” said May, slamming down her unfinished drink.
“In a minute,” said Willie. “You know what I think? It’s chemistry. You and I just have a chemical affinity, like sodium and chlorine.”
“I’ve heard that line so often,” said May impatiently, “it makes me want to throw up. How do you explain the fact that almost every guy in the night-club business has felt this chemical affinity for me, while I look on them as so many hogs?”
Willie smiled with such naked male smugness that May jumped to her feet, resisting an impulse to throw her glass at him. “I’m roasting, I want to go.”
The firefall that night seemed less thrilling, somehow, though in every way the scene was unchanged except that the moon was fuller and brighter. The hidden musicians played the same nostalgic lament, and Willie kissed May again; but an odd feeling that he had better do so replaced last night’s fervor. May felt the difference in his lips, and her own remained coolly prim. Instead of going upstairs, they danced for a while. At last they went to May’s room, but Willie found everything different.