April North

10

The Pontiac was big and bulky. Cars, she thought, taking the turn off onto the narrow road that led to Craig’s house. You could tell the whole story in terms of cars. A green Oldsmobile a year old, where Dan Duncan had claimed her virginity in the back seat on a Saturday night When was that? Two weeks ago. Just two weeks ago.

And the Mercedes-Benz, the sleek 300-SL that had stopped for her when she had been on her way to Xenia and from there to New York. Craig’s car. And the hot rod — Bill Piersall’s car. And now the bulky Pontiac. And she did not even know to whom it belonged.

If I stayed out of cars, she thought oddly, I might stay out of trouble. But if I stayed out of trouble I wouldn’t be April North, because April North seems to be nothing but a brainless blob who has one ever-loving hell of a knack for getting into trouble, not out.

Well, she was going to get out of trouble. She had made some mistakes, and Danny Duncan had been the first one, and Craig Jeffers had been an even worse one. For a while — a week, not much longer than that — she had thought herself in love with him. But any feeling she might have had for him was over. He had killed it.

Love? Not love, she knew. Sex, more than anything else. He had made her hear bells ring and rockets whistle, but the bells and the rockets were not signs of love. They were the fruits of sex. He was an expert, polished and accomplished, and he was able to lead her to heights of which she had never even dreamed.

But this hardly made them soulmates. Frank Evans had told her that sooner or later she would find out that Craig was a failure himself, just like everyone else at the party. And Frank Evans was right. Craig was dissipated and depraved, the same as Ken Rutherford who drank too much and the insatiably promiscuous Sue Maynor. Craig needed to try new kicks, new women, and he was incapable of love. He was rotten to the core. And she did not love him.

She rolled down the Pontiac’s window and filled her lungs with night air. Tonight, she thought, she was getting rid of him forever. She was going to return the Pontiac and she was going to explain that she did not want to see him again, that she knew him for what he was and that obviously he was not for her. He probably would not mind too much, as far as it went. She was just a toy as far as he was concerned, that he had had his fun with. Probably he would be almost as glad to get rid of her as she was to get rid of him.

And after that? Nothing too glamorous, she thought. She’d already messed herself up by trying to turn herself into a glamor gal, darling of the suave set. And it had not worked at all. Deep down inside she was little April North, the daughter of an Antrim druggist. A month ago she’d been a virgin. And, while she could hardly grow back her virginity, she could do the next best thing. She could start being April North again.

She would live at home, with parents and brother. She would go to school, study diligently, and get the best grades she could possibly get. And she would live out the remainder of her senior year at Antrim High in a sort of social cocoon, turning down dates, avoiding other girls, and keeping to herself. She did not want to trade sex with Craig and his friends for sex with boys like Dan Duncan and Bill Piersall and Jim Bregger — that was no solution. She wanted to renounce sex entirely and start being a good girl all over again.

The rest of the year would be tough to get through.

She had a reputation, of course but the reputation would atrophy in time. And she could ignore the knowing glances easily enough, much as she had been ignoring them all week in school. After while they would tire of making remarks and passes.

And once she had graduated, everything would be simpler. She would go away to school — either land a scholarship or convince her father to spend an outrageous sum for her education. A bad reputation would not follow her across state lines.

College would give her a fresh start. She would still have a family to come home to, and this would be much better than her original idea of running away to New York. She would have a chance to mature at her natural pace, a chance to meet the right kind of guy and marry him and move to the right kind of town and have kids and be a good person.

She sighed. Craig’s house was on her right, a few lights on downstairs. His Mercedes was parked in front. The other cars which had lain dormant there when she had left were gone. She pulled the Pontiac over to the side of the road, cut the engine, hauled on the emergency brake and got out of the car.

She rang Craig’s doorbell and he let her in.

“Well,” he said. “The little auto thief has returned.”

“I didn’t steal the car. I borrowed it.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Ah, my dear. Do I detect a note of hostility in your words?”

“You’re very perceptive.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Last night was just a little too much for me, Craig. Maybe I’m not as smooth and sophisticated as the girls you’re used to. I don’t care.”

He slapped his hand to his brow in mock horror. “April,” he said. “April, April April. Come in, girl. Seat yourself, relax. You’re all unnerved.”

“I’m mad.”

“Sit down, whatever you are. Would you like a drink?”

“No.”

“A cigarette?”

“No.”

“A session in bed?”’

She colored. “No,” she said firmly.

“Then what do you want, April? Other than to return Sue’s car. Frank Evans had to drive the poor lass home, and she wants her car back as soon as possible. Rather uncouth of you to take it, wouldn’t you say?”

“I had to get home.”

“You could have asked for a ride.”

“You were sleeping,” she said. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I wouldn’t have minded.”

“You were sleeping with a blonde. I didn’t even want to stay in the same room with the two of you.”

He laughed happily. “Wonderful! You’re jealous, little girl. A rather bourgeois sentiment, but not without its own sort of merit. Actually you don’t have to be jealous. The girl is unimportant enough. But she has the largest breasts I ever saw in my life. I simply had to find out what it was like to make love to a cow.”

She drew a breath. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“How was it?”

“Interesting,” he said.

“I’m glad you had an interesting time, Craig. And I’m not jealous. Not jealous of your blonde cow and not jealous of Sue Maynor.”

She was angry, now, angry at him for what he was and at herself for not seeing through him sooner, for being blind to all the rotten streaks in the man. He was depraved and rotten from top to bottom, and she was sick at herself for ever having anything whatsoever to do with him.

“I’m not jealous,” she went on. “I suppose I was, for a little while. But now I’m only revolted. I’m sick of you, Craig. You’ve got carloads of money and plenty of sophistication and you’re nothing but a bum underneath it all.”

“Really, April. A bum?”

“A bum. A horrible person — that’s all you ever have been and all you ever will be. And I’m through with you, Craig. I’m through with this whole little life you and your friends have. It’s not for me, not ever.”

He stood up, walked to the wall, flicked a switch. Mood music filtered through the room. More props, she thought. Like the car and the house and the oh-so-dashing mustache. If you took away his props he was nothing at all.

“What life is for you, April?”

“A normal life.”

“And what does that mean, pray tell?”

“A decent life,” she snapped. “A life at home with my parents. Oh, you would call it a dull life, but it’s the right way, Craig. I’ll finish school at Antrim and I’ll stay decent and I’ll go away to college. It may sound commonplace but it’s what I want.”

He sighed. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I thought you might feel something along these lines. And the thought of you going home to mama is more offensive than I can possibly tell you. So I’ve ruled out that course of action, girl.”

“What are you talking about?”

He shrugged. “It should be clear enough,” he said. “I mean exactly what I’ve just finished saying. You can’t go home to the bosom of your revolting family. They’ll throw you out on your ear.”

“Why should they?”

“Because you’re a slut,” he said dispassionately. “Mind you, I’m not making a value judgment. Those are not my values, not by any means. But, in the eyes of your fatheaded father and your moronic mother, you are a slut.”

She got to her feet. “I don’t get it, Craig. Say what you mean.”

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you.”

She stood in her tracks while he walked across the room to a table. He opened a drawer and drew forth an envelope. Then he crossed the room again and presented the envelope to her with a flourish.

“Here you are,” he said. “See for yourself.”

She opened the envelope and nearly fell to the floor. As it was she took two steps backward and sat down again on the couch, her mouth open and her eyes wide.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Look them over. Some of them are works of art, girl.”

They were pictures. A dozen pictures, all told, and not one of them printable. And in each picture a young girl was plainly visible.

The girl was April North.

“How did you—”

“Take the pictures?” He grinned. “It was easy enough, my dear. Long ago I realized the advantage of candid photography. I’ve taken the trouble to install a camera or two in the walls of my bedroom. The expense was considerable, but I think you’ll agree the results justify it. All that was required was to snap a remote control unit at the proper moment. I’ve taken dozens of pictures of you, April. These are the choicest items in the lot. They are nice, wouldn’t you say?”

They were magnificent. A shot of her and Craig, she lying on her back, Craig between her white thighs. A shot of herself leaning face-down over the bed, feet on the floor, with Craig standing behind her.

A shot that showed only her face, catching her in an act which Craig had assured her was “perfectly natural,” and which now made her want to vomit.

Another shot.

And more.

And, finally, a picture that had been taken the night before, in the garden. A picture of two female bodies intertwined on a terrycloth-covered chaise. One was the body of April North.

“Yes,” he said, indicating the picture, “that one was rather a surprise. I was wandering in the garden and came upon you two, you and the redoubtable Margo. You were too excited to take notice of me, I’m afraid. So I scurried off for my camera and rendered the moment immortal. You know, you’ve rather a nerve to criticize me. You were having quite a time with Margo, girl.”

“I was drunk.”

“But hardly too drunk to enjoy yourself. Don’t moralize in my direction, April. On the one hand you try to call yourself a free spirit, a sinless wonder. And on the other hand you castigate me for a lack of fidelity to you. A rather illogical position, wouldn’t you say?”

She said nothing. He grinned again, pointing to the pictures. “And now you want to leave me, to flee to your family and five the good life again. Fortunately, you cannot do this. I’ve protected you from that, April.”

“How?”

“With those pictures,” he said. “Those art studies. Do you think your parents will welcome you when they’ve seen them?”

“They won’t see them.”

“But they will, dear.”

She snatched the photographs, shredded them viciously. She tore each one in half and tore the halves in half while he watched her with a gleam in his eye.

“An empty gesture, April.”

“Craig—”

He spread his hands, palms raised. “Your parents will see the photographs,” he said. “It’s out of my hands, really. This afternoon it occurred to me that you ought to bid your mother and father good-bye and move in with me on a permanent basis. To further that aim I sent a set of prints to your parents. I doubt that they’ll receive you with open arms.”

“You—”

“Mailed the pictures,” he supplied. “That’s exactly what I did. While I dropped dear Sweet Sue at her home in Xenia, I mailed the photographs. Your parents should receive them in the morning mail.”

“I’ll get them first.”

“By staying home from school, April?”

“If I have to.”

He sighed. “Not even that way,” he said. “You see, I made up two sets of prints. I mailed one to your mother at your house. I dispatched the other to your father, the droll druggist, at his place of business. I don’t think you’ll be able to cut off both letters, dear April. Will you?”

She closed her eyes and thought that she was going to die. Everything, her future, her life, was wrecked, irreparably smashed, she knew. The pictures would kill whatever chance she might have had for happiness. There was no going back now, no living in her fathers house, no life in Antrim.

It was over.

Over and done with.

Everything had seemed so simple before. Just get rid of Craig, go home, relax. Start living like a decent girl again, and in time everything would be all right.

Yes, she thought. That was the way she had worked out her plans. But the future was not going to play itself out that way. A good decent future would have been nice, but a dozen filthy pictures showing April North having sex would make all that quite impossible.

“Damn you,” she said.

He laughed.

“Damn you to hell. I hate you, Craig. I’d love to kill you. I’d like to cut your throat and watch you bleed.”

“Do you hate me that much?”

“God, how I hate you.” She turned from him, unable to look at him now. “You’ve ruined everything,” she told him. “I had a chance until you sent those pictures out I had a chance. I could have carved out a decent life for myself.”

“You’d have died of boredom.”

“I’d have been clean.”

“Clean and dull. April, you’ve come a long way in a short time. You were beginning to learn what being a woman meant. Not a kitchen drudge like your mother — a real woman.”

“I’d rather be a decent human being.”

“You can’t now, can you?”

She drew a breath. “No,” she said, “I guess not I guess you fixed everything, Craig.”

He smiled at her. “You can move in here, you know.”

“What!”

“You can move in with me,” he repeated. “You can’t go home, obviously. It’s out of my hands and into the hands of the United States Post Office, and their hands are too strong for us to tamper with. But you can move into my house and share my bed and five the sort of life you’ve tasted recently. A good life, April. A wild free life that doesn’t take a human being and turn him into a robot.”

“With sex and parties?”

“With sex and parties,” he said. “And don’t try to make a saint out of yourself, child. You happen to like sex and parties. You happen to like everything about them. Don’t deny it. You’ve loved everything I’ve given you and I’ve given you plenty. If you’ve got a brain in your feathery little head you’ll move in here and like it. And sleep with anyone who asks you and have yourself a ball before you’re dead.”

Their eyes met, and she stared at him and let him stare at her.

Then he dropped his eyes.

“No,” she said.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

And her certainty must have showed because after a moment he simply shrugged and nodded his head. He told her she was making a mistake, and she said that she was not, that her greatest mistake had been Craig Jeffers.

“Then you’re going?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Can I give you a lift?”

“I’ll walk.”

“It’s a long walk, April. And it’s starting to rain outside. You’ll get wet.”

“I don’t care.”

“I see. Where are you going, April?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe New York. But it doesn’t really matter, Craig. Nothing matters.”

She started to the door. He moved to open it for her but she brushed him aside and opened it herself. He was right, rain had started and the night was gloomy. Soon she would get soaked.

But she did not care.

“April?”

“Go on.”

“You should stay. You’re doing something silly.”

“No,” she said. “I’m doing something smart.”

She was halfway out the door when something occurred to her and she turned around, coming back inside the house. He was at the bar pouring himself a drink. He raised his eyes at her approach.

“Craig,” she said, “before I said I’d love to kill you. But I don’t wish you were dead.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“I want you to live a long time,” she said. “I don’t want you to die young. I want you to live hard and fast, just the way you’ve always lived, without any moral code and without any sense of obligation to the rest of the world.”

He said nothing.

“I want you to grow to be a very old man,” she said. “Do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll be the saddest old man in the world,” she said. “The most miserable old man in the whole world. You’d be very lucky if you died young, Craig, before you were old enough to see what a mess you were. And I don’t want that to happen. I want you to live long enough to be wretched.”

She walked out of the house and slammed the door and started walking.

She barely noticed the rain.

There was a lot of rain, and it was wet. In autumn Antrim has rainy days, and on these days it rains in spades. The sky opens up and the rain comes down, first in a drizzle and then in a torrent, and if you stay outside in the rain you get soaked through, despite galoshes, rainwear, umbrellas.

April had none of these. She was more than soaked. And she did not care.

No cars passed her in either direction while she walked down the narrow road from Craig Jeffers’ house to Route 68. There was only the road and the trees at either side, only the wet and the damp, only the wind like a sword through silk. She was wearing dungarees and a sweater, the wholesome costume of the wholesome girl, and the dungarees and sweater were plastered against her body by the rain.

She went on walking.

There was no place to go now. No place to go and nothing to do. She was stuck. By tomorrow morning both her mother and her father would know that she was a tramp. A rumor alone they might have sloughed off, but a rumor and a photograph are two different things entirely. Quite probably the pictures would literally kill them. And if they did not have heart attacks over the photographs, they would still be killed on the inside.

And they would be through with her. That much was painfully obvious. She could never live with them again, or see them again, or think of them again as people close to her. Home was the place where, when you had to go there, they had to take you in. But she did not have to go there. And if she did, it would be too damned bad for April North, because after her parents saw the pictures they would not feel compelled to take her in.

She kept walking. She could go to New York, maybe. But she had no money, and she did not want to go home and pack a suitcase. And there was more to it than that. She could never feel right simply by running away, simply by escaping. There had been a time when that course had made sense but it did not make sense now.

Nothing did.

Maybe she could kill herself. It would not be difficult, she thought. Just run in front of a fast car, or lie down on a railroad track, or find a bridge and jump from it Maybe that was the logical answer. If there was nothing to look forward to but misery, what was the sense in staying alive?

No.

No, suicide was no answer. Suicide was ridiculous, because there was always some chance for happiness even if you could not see it at the moment. There was nothing to gain and everything to lose in giving up the gift of life.

No suicide.

Then — what?

She reached 68 and started off away from Antrim and toward Xenia. She was walking away from Antrim rather than toward Xenia — God knew that there was nothing worth going to Xenia for, but she surely did not want to go home. She kept walking and wondering and then the car pulled up beside her.

At first she thought it was Craig. But it was not a Mercedes, not by any means.

And then she laughed.

Because she had come full circle, in some mysterious way, and the car beside her was a green Oldsmobile a year old, the green Oldsmobile where her virginity had been taken away in the back seat.

The driver was Danny Duncan.