Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [369]
“Six-thirty.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Goodbye, Bill.”
“Goodbye, Kid.”
“And, Bill, you go home now and put on dry socks and have your mother make you a hot lemonade.”
“I will. So long, Kid.”
He emerged from the telephone booth smiling.
“Bad day,” he said to the druggist.
“Yes, looks like it’ll rain all day.”
“It’s rained more than the flood already.”
“Well, maybe it’ll clear up tomorrow.”
“Say, give me a coke.”
“Yes, sir. Say, you know what I’ll bet? I bet you’ve been fighting with your girl. When you came in, you had a face on you like a man ready to lick his weight in wild cats, and didn’t even hear me talk to you. And you came out smiling like Easter Sunday. I said to myself, Wow, there’s a lad, quarrelling with his girl friend or his missus. Well, here’s your coke.”
“Yeah, you guessed it. We had a dumb fight, and fixed it up. She’s a damn fine kid.”
“If she is, don’t let a little spat draw you apart. These days there ain’t many of them left that a man can have trust in. I know that with so many of them painting up and smoking cigarettes. They ain’t out of public school before they’re in here for cigarettes and making eyes at anything in pants.”
“Well, my girl’s the goods and I’m glad I got her.”
“If she is, boy, hang on to her.”
“I know that much.”
“Well, it’s still raining. Looks like an all-day rain.”
“Uh huh! So long.”
He could thank that Jackson bitch for one thing. She’d shown him what a decent girl Catherine was. Catherine was pure gold, and she was Studs Lonigan’s girl.
III
Studs smiled apologetically at Catherine in the doorway.
“Come in,” she said sheepishly.
“I’m not late, am I?” he asked, feeling the necessity of saying something.
“Why, no. I have things about ready, though, because I got off work a little early today to come home and cook.”
“Well, that was certainly nice of you,” he said hoarsely.
“Here, give me your hat and coat,” she said, accepting them and hanging them in a hall closet off the front door.
They looked at each other. She broke into an effervescently spontaneous smile.
“Is this going to be all the greeting I get?”
“Well . . .” he said gravely.
“You’re not even going to say you’re glad to see me?” she said, showing disappointment.
Seeing the look of tragic discomfort on his face, she smiled lightly, drawing a grin from him.
“I’m glad, naturally.”
“You men!” she exclaimed familiarly.
She flung her arms about him, kissed him, led him by the hand into the parlor.
“Aren’t you going to tell me how glad you are to see me?” she said as they sat down on the small couch in the corner of the parlor.
“Yes, I am.”
“And now, tell me, what have you been doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“These last few days.”
“Oh, nothing much. There hasn’t been anything to do. I haven’t been doing any work because things are pretty quiet with my dad.”
“Want to know what I’ve been doing?”
“Why, sure.”
“I’ll tell you. I’ve been wondering when you would have enough sense to telephone me. You’re such a booby, taking things so seriously. You men, you’re worse than babies when it comes to trying to understand a girl.”
“Maybe it’s because girls are babies.”
“Oh, yeah?” she smiled.
“Nice babies,” he said heavily.
She mussed his hair playfully, kissed him, momentarily nestled her head against his shoulders. She jumped up.
“You wait here a minute until I call you,” she said like a mother instructing a child, shoving him back onto the couch as he arose.
He watched her vanish from the parlor, and leaned back comfortably in the couch. His eyes travelled about the small, neat parlor, with the square piano against one wall, two flush easy chairs, a lamp with a flowery blue-bordered shade reposing on a doily in the center of a small table. Outside, the rain had stopped, and an after-glow endowed the street with a mellow coloring. A pleasant street, with homes and apartments, and it made him think of the 5700 block on Indiana Avenue in the old days.
He could hear her fussing in the rear of the apartment. She was doing things for him. He was gratified. Now he was sorry he had goofed around