Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [331]
“Yeah, they’re out sunning themselves, all right,” Studs said, the sounds of automobiles purring steadily in his ears.
He heard the smack from a driven golf ball, and looked past Catherine at the wide expanse of the golf course. It was nice to look at, with blotches of leafless trees and bushes along its edges, with shoots of fresh green bursting amidst dead wintry grass and catching shimmers of sunlight, and with golfers spread over it and moving about in differing directions. Taking her arm, he led her over soft and soggy ground to a tee-off where a bandy-legged man in khaki trousers and shirt stood with his feet widely stanced, measuring the ball perched on a small cone of damp sand. He cracked it, and the ball veered to the right on low line, landed, disappeared. The man shook his head disappointedly.
A man in khaki pants and shirt with a prominent Adam’s apple drove quickly, an arching line which bounded neatly onto a patch of green before the hole. Studs watched them sling their golf bags over their left shoulders and tramp forward, and he wished he could drive golf balls like that last fellow, because it might be fun, and safe exercise with his heart. Those two seemed to enjoy it, and he might, too.
“Bill, let’s learn to play golf this summer.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” he answered as they returned to the walk.
“It’ll be lots of fun, I’ll bet, but it would take me ages to learn how to hit the ball right.”
“I imagine one could pick it up more easy than you suspect.”
“Even if I couldn’t learn to do it well, I think it would be nice as long as we did it together.”
He studied the expression on the faces of passing strangers, wondering what went on in their heads, and were they worse or better off than he was. Three girls strolled by them.
“And Conroy, he was the biggest simpleton, and when he danced he just ruined my brand new shoes,” one of the girls said.
“I had the grandest time, Katie, and Hal just said the funniest things,” the girl in the middle, a frail blonde, said.
“The only thing funny about my date was his face. He looked like . . . like some kind of a chimpanzee or something,” the third one said.
Studs watched them wriggle on. Young, younger than girls he’d ever get, nice to look at.
“High-school kids talking about their dates,” Catherine said sagely.
He turned his eyes toward her, and she blew him a kiss.
“We’re going to have our dates, too, this summer.”
“Sure.”
“It won’t be long now before we can go to the beach on Sundays. And let’s sometime get Phil and Loretta and Carroll and Fran and have a beach party. We can bring along a picnic lunch and a guitar and roast marshmallows by a fire and sing. It’ll be loads of fun.”
“Sure, we’ll plan on it some time this summer, and we’ll also ask Red Kelly and his wife.”
It would be a good idea, but going to the beach that way would be a little different than it used to be when he’d go alone with some guys and be expecting to find some jane there, keen and lively, who would flirt and afterward put out and think of it as only fun and nothing serious. This was different, and those days and the expectation of that kind of a thing was gone. Still, he guessed that it was just natural for a guy to think of that kind of thing now and then.
“Bill, dear, I’m so happy thinking of all the things we’ll be able to do this summer, beach parties, and picnics, lots of things we can do together, can’t we? And when I get my vacation, if you can be free, too, we could go away together and find a nice summer resort where we can stay and have separate rooms, of course, and just be together in the same place, having two full weeks to do things together. Won’t it be fun?”
He nodded. If they did, would she? He was getting tired of waiting for it from her, and he wondered would all this long wait make it any better?
Delayed at the drive by the procession of automobiles, she took his arm. They skirted across and walked along by the lake.
“The lake’s simply grand today, Bill, look . . .