Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [379]
“Because, dear, if you did feel that way toward me, I don’t know what I’d do,” she said.
He smiled reassuringly and tried to get at how he did exactly feel toward her, without showing that he was thinking seriously. He wondered, also, how many girls did let a guy go the limit before marriage, when they were really nuts about a guy? He began to doubt how much he thought of her, because after all she had let him. Did other decent girls, like his sisters, do that before marriage? Most who did, well, he didn’t know? Was she an exception? He looked at her, felt her knees rubbing against his, and all he knew was that he wanted her. She’d gone the limit because she cared for him, couldn’t resist him. But then Lucy hadn’t. Still, maybe she had with other guys. Come to think of it, that night in the cab after the dance she had not acted just like an innocent broad. Broodingly, against his will, he looked at Catherine and wished she was Lucy. He smiled hurriedly and genially, so that she wouldn’t worry or think he didn’t like her. Because after hurting her that way last night, he couldn’t let himself do anything to hurt her feelings.
“Bill, dear, now tell me frankly,” she said, and he could see struggle and a determination to be brave mirrored in her face. “Tell me, after last night do you still want to marry me?”
“Yes, Kid, you know I do.”
“When?”
“Whenever we can arrange it, just like you said. You said we shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry.”
“But that’s changed. You know, dear, doing what we did last night, and our not being married, it’s a sin. We can’t do that ever again until we’re married . . . and Bill, dear, I love you terribly.”
The waitress cleared their dishes and Studs was glad for the interruption, because he was beginning to become afraid of himself, of the feeling of love and tenderness toward her that arose with her words, her nearness, the touch of her knees, the memory of last night like a spirit seeping through all these feelings to warm them and glue them together. He read the menu.
“Coffee and chocolate ice cream,” she said.
The waitress stood nervously over Studs.
“Same,” he said.
Catherine smiled at him, enigmatically, a smile that was very brief, like a flash, and that he could not exactly get. In it she had seemed humble, and she seemed very understanding, and he could not quite figure it out.
He had never felt the same way with a girl, not even with Lucy. Sure of himself, and of Catherine, a feeling that he was the boss and not she, a feeling that he could do what he liked with her without being the loser, and still, also, a feeling toward her of kindness, a wanting to pet her and kiss her and stroke her hands, her face and her breasts and her body, and to make up to her with kindness for the way he had hurt her last night.
He could not understand himself, and how things had come to this development between them. And he could not understand how a girl could care so much for him. He smiled at her, weakly and hastily, and he still felt their knees touching.
“We’re going to be awfully happy together, aren’t we, Bill?” she said, and he nodded curtly, hoping as much as believing.
“And you still care for me and want to marry me?”
He smiled yes. He saw ahead how many nights they would have together after they were married; nights and years and years, and he would have that same feeling of being alone with her, half awake and half asleep, in a daze that was like a beautiful song.
“Well, we’ll be married soon.”
“Whatever you wish, Kid. There’s no necessity of rushing it unless you want to, because we got to get more saved up and everything arranged right,” he said, thinking of the money he had lost.
And how was he going to explain that to her?
“Bill, I could wait, oh, forever, if I knew you cared for me. But Bill . . .”
“I do, Kid.”
“Tell me that again,” she said with a sort of hunger in her eyes.
“I do,” he said huskily, suddenly seeing himself like the actor in an important drama, as if maybe this was all a movie, showing before all the