Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [63]
Later that evening Mr. Bridge wandered restlessly around the bedroom while his wife sat at the dressing table stroking her face with cold cream.
“I didn’t realize she had a nephew that old,” he said. “The boy must be nearly the same age she is.”
“Not quite. Harriet looks younger than she is. She’s twenty-four or twenty-five, if I’m not mistaken,” Mrs. Bridge answered thoughtfully. “Of course, I suppose her sister could be any age.”
“There are plenty of decent colored schools.”
“Yes, I imagine,” she said, dipping her fingers into the jar of cream.
“Why doesn’t the boy pick one of those schools? Why the devil does he want to go to Harvard?”
“Goodness, I’m not the person to ask,” she replied. She continued stroking the cream on her face. “But it’s hardly a mystery. Harvard is such a fine school.”
“It is a fine school. A very fine school. It’s a very fine school indeed.”
Because of his tone she paused. She glanced at him in the mirror. “If Harriet’s nephew wishes to attend Harvard don’t you think he has every right to?”
“Junior Dewes, or whatever his name is, has the right to apply for admission. He does not necessarily have the ‘right’ to attend Harvard.”
“Well,” she said, “of course, it isn’t up to me. I haven’t the faintest idea whether or not they’re going to accept him. I suppose that’s up to the Board of Trustees, or whoever makes these decisions.”
“If you want my opinion, that boy is asking for trouble. Why does he want to attend Harvard? There have been any number of Negroes who became respected, influential men without going to a white school. Look at George Washington Carver! Look at Booker T. Washington! Lord, these men managed to get a fine education without doing what this boy in Cleveland wants to do.”
She paused again, watching him in the mirror, and finally said, “I had no idea this would upset you so. I wouldn’t have brought up the subject.”
“No good will come of it,” he said as he paced the bedroom pulling at the tassels of his robe.
66 High School Album
Under the impression that his name must be Solomon, Mrs. Bridge brought him a family argument to settle. At considerable length she explained what had happened; even so it was confusing. As nearly as he could discover, Carolyn, without asking permission, had taken a pair of scissors and had clipped a number of pictures out of Ruth’s high school annual. Five pictures. Five pictures of one boy. Being presented with the evidence he studied it: five rectangular photographs about the size of a postage stamp featuring a plump, mealy-faced youth with prominent ears and a foxy grin whose name was Hayden Seitz. In each photograph Hayden Seitz was grinning. As Mr. Bridge pondered this example of his daughter’s taste in young men he began to feel depressed. It was doubtful if a less promising specimen could be found anywhere in the album. All the same, she was infatuated; there was no question of this, because she had mutilated Ruth’s book. Ruth was in a rage, having slapped her younger sister; now Carolyn was crying but she too was enraged, not only because of the slap and because Ruth had grabbed her by the hair but because, as Mrs. Bridge explained, not satisfied with hair-pulling and slapping, Ruth had called Carolyn “a dreadful name.” So there was chaos and disorder in the house, as there had been once before when the girls could not abide each other, and he was expected to do whatever ought to be done. It was that simple.
The phrase his wife had used made him curious, though under the circumstances only two or three names seemed likely. He thought about inquiring, but decided not to. After all, the name was irrelevant. What was relevant was that it was dreadful; and from this description he concluded that his wife did not intend to repeat the word aloud. So, with the idea that sometime in the future when all of this had been settled and nearly forgotten he might ask Ruth just exactly what she had called Carolyn, he rocked around in his swivel chair and deliberated. What he must decide was which of them should be