'Mercurochrome's no good at all for that.'
'Why not? What's the matter with it?'
'It just isn't any good for that stuff, that's all. Ya need iodine.'
He looked at Ginnie. 'It stings a lot, though, doesn't it?' he asked.
'Doesn't it sting a helluva lot?'
'It stings,' Ginnie said, 'but it won't kill you or anything.'
Apparently without resenting Ginnie's tone, Selena's brother turned back to his finger. 'I don't like it when it stings,' he said.
'Nobody does.'
He nodded in agreement. 'Yeah,' he said.
Ginnie watched him for a minute. 'Stop touching it,' she said suddenly.
As though responding to an electric shock, Selena's brother pulled back his uninjured hand. He sat up a trifle straighter--or rather, slumped a trifle less. He looked at some object on the other side of the room. An almost dreamy expression came over his disorderly features. He inserted the nail of his uninjured index finger into the crevice between two front teeth and, removing a food particle, turned to Ginnie. 'Jeat jet?' he asked.
'What?'
'Jeat lunch yet?'
Ginnie shook her head. 'I'll eat when I get home,' she said. 'My mother always has lunch ready for me when I get home.'
'I got a half a chicken sandwich in my room. Ya want it? I didn't touch it or anything.'
'No, thank you. Really.'
'You just played tennis, for Chrissake. Aren'tcha hungry?'
'It isn't that,' said Ginnie, crossing her legs. 'It's just that my mother always has lunch ready when I get home. She goes insane if I'm not hungry, I mean.'
Selena's brother seemed to accept this explanation. At least, he nodded and looked away. But he turned back suddenly. 'How 'bout a glassa milk?' he said.
'No, thanks.... Thank you, though.'
Absently, he bent over and scratched his bare ankle. 'What's the name of this guy she's marrying?' he asked.
'Joan, you mean?' said Ginnie. 'Dick Heffner.'
Selena's brother went on scratching his ankle.
'He's a lieutenant commander in the Navy,' Ginnie said.
'Big deal.'
Ginnie giggled. She watched him scratch his ankle till it was red.
When he began to scratch off a minor skin eruption on his calf with his fingernail, she stopped watching.
'Where do you know Joan from?' she asked. 'I never saw you at the house or anything.'
'Never been at your goddam house.'
Ginnie waited, but nothing led away from this statement. 'Where'd you meet her, then?' she asked.
'Party,' he said.
'At a party? When?'
'I don't know. Christmas, '42.' From his breast pajama pocket he two-fingered out a cigarette that looked as though it had been slept on.
'How 'bout throwing me those matches?' he said. Ginnie handed him a box of matches from the table beside her. He lit his cigarette without straightening out its curvature, then replaced the used match in the box. Tilting his head back, he slowly released an enormous quantity of smoke from his mouth and drew it up through his nostrils. He continued to smoke in this 'French-inhale' style. Very probably, it was not part of the sofa vaudeville of a showoff but, rather, the private, exposed achievement of a young man who, at one time or another, might have tried shaving himself lefthanded.
'Why's Joan a snob?' Ginnie asked.
'Why? Because she is. How the hell do I know why?'
'Yes, but I mean why do you say she is?'
He turned to her wearily. 'Listen. I wrote her eight goddam letters.
Eight. She didn't answer one of 'em.'
Ginnie hesitated. 'Well, maybe she was busy.'
'Yeah. Busy. Busy as a little goddam beaver.'
'Do you have to swear so much?' Ginnie asked.
'Goddam right I do.'
