Too much happiness_ stories - Alice Munro [31]
Nina had thought of that too.
“If he asks you to go and eat with him tomorrow night, why don’t you go? There’s always something good to eat on Saturday nights, it’s special.”
On Saturdays the cafeteria was closed. The possibility of meeting Mr. Purvis disturbed and interested me.
“Should I really? If he asks?”
So I went upstairs, having agreed to dine with Mr. Purvis—he had actually said “dine”—and asked Nina what I should wear.
“Why worry now? It’s not till tomorrow night.”
Why worry indeed? I had only one good dress, the turquoise crepe that I had bought with some of my scholarship money, to wear when I gave the valedictory address at the high school commencement exercises.
“And anyway it doesn’t matter,” said Nina. “He’ll never notice.”
Mrs. Winner came to get me. Her hair was not white, but platinum blond, a color that to me certified a hard heart, immoral dealings, a long bumpy ride through the sordid back alleys of life. Nevertheless I pressed down on the handle of the front door to ride beside her, because I thought that was the decent and democratic thing to do. She let me do this, standing beside her, then briskly opened the back door.
I had thought that Mr. Purvis must live in one of the stodgy mansions surrounded by acres of lawns and unfarmed fields north of the city. It was probably the racehorses that had made me think so. Instead, we travelled east through prosperous but not lordly streets, past brick and mock-Tudor houses with their lights on in the early dark and their Christmas lights blinking already out of the snow-capped shrubbery. We turned in at a narrow driveway between high hedges and parked in front of a house that I recognized as modern because of its flat roof and long wall of windows and the fact that the building material appeared to be cement. No Christmas lights here, no lights of any kind.
No sign of Mr. Purvis either. The car slid into a basement cavern, we rode in an elevator up one floor and came out in a hall dimly lit and furnished like a living room with upholstered hard chairs and little polished tables, and mirrors and rugs. Mrs. Winner waved me ahead of her through one of the doors that opened off this hall, into a windowless room with a bench and hooks around the walls. It was just like a school cloakroom except for the polish on the wood and carpet on the floor.
“Here is where you leave your clothes,” Mrs. Winner said.
I removed my boots, I stuffed my mittens into my coat pockets, I hung my coat up. Mrs. Winner stayed with me. I supposed she had to, to show me which way to take next. There was a comb in my pocket and I wanted to fix my hair, but not with her watching. And I did not see a mirror.
“Now the rest.”
She looked straight at me to see if I understood, and when I appeared not to (though in a sense I did, I understood but hoped to have made a mistake) she said, “Don’t worry, you won’t be cold. The house is well heated throughout.”
I did not yet move to obey, and she spoke to me casually, as if she could not be bothered with contempt.
“I hope you’re not a baby.”
I could have reached for my coat, at that point. I could have demanded to be driven back to the rooming house. If that was refused, I could have walked back on my own. I remembered the way we had come and though it would have been cold to walk, it would have taken me less than an hour.
I don’t suppose that the outside door would have been locked, or that there would have been any effort to bring me back.
“Oh no,” said Mrs. Winner, seeing I still did not make a move. “Do you think you’re made any different from the rest of us? You think I haven’t seen all you got before now?”
It was partly her contempt that made me stay. Partly. That and my pride.
I sat down. I removed my shoes. I unfastened and peeled down my stockings. I stood up and unzipped then yanked off the dress in which I had delivered the valedictory address