The music stopped and Charlie looked up and waved at Bud. Bud put his horn down on the piano for a moment and nudged Emmy. They both smiled and nodded and waved. Charlie beckoned to them to come over but the music started again and Bud picked up his trombone.
Charlie put his arm around Beth and she was astonished at the force of her pleasure. She turned to smile at him and it came to her as a shock that their faces were so close. Charlie pulled her closer and checked her sudden impulse to retreat with his own obstinate strength.
“Beth,” he said, “do you know you bothered the hell out of me all through Christmas vacation?” She smiled away from him. “I thought about you all the time. And that’s the God’s truth, if I never told it before. I couldn’t get you out of my head. Oh, I know what you’re thinking.” He looked at his beer and gave her a chance to watch him again. “You think I’ve said the same thing to a dozen different girls. Well, I guess I have, at that. I even thought I meant it once or twice.” He laughed a little at himself. “Do I sound like a damn fool?”
“Yes,” she said, but she smiled gently.
He leaned toward her. “I wish I knew you better, Beth. I think there must be a lot to know about you.” He reached over and stroked her cheek with his index finger, and she pulled away, still smiling.
“Why?”
“Because there’s so little you tell. You won’t talk about yourself, honey. And yet you’re talented, intelligent….” He paused. “You’re beautiful, Beth. I say this at considerable risk to my ego.”
She laughed and looked at him.
“You are, you know.” He reached into her soft hair and caressed her neck with his hand. “Will I have to resort to tricks to get you out next time? Or can I just say, ‘Beth, this is Charlie. I want to see you’?”
“Try it,” she said.
“I will. Do you remember meeting me, Beth? At a party a couple of years ago? You were there with Don. Remember?”
“Yes.” She smiled, warm and aroused. “Do you know what I thought of you?”
“No,” she said and shook her head, wondering at her wealth of monosyllables.
“I thought you were a beautiful girl who didn’t know she was beautiful. I thought you were antisocial, too. I figured you for a born spinster. My God, I was blind! I remember wondering if some guy would have the sense to see how pretty you were and didn’t give a damn that you were such a square. Or maybe liked you square. I guess Don did.”
“We got along, for a while.”
“God, isn’t it funny how things work out? I had the eyes to see you with and not the sense to do anything about it. I guess 1 thought you were strange. I mean, it didn’t seem right that you should be so wrapped up in books. Not you.”
“Oh, I’ve always liked books.” She couldn’t get a respectable sentence out.
“Better than anything else?”
“Not quite.”
“I used to think so.”
“They were an escape. They—filled an empty place. I guess you don’t know about empty places, Charlie.”
“I’m spoiled. I don’t say that makes a better man of me. Will you tell me about the empty places, honey?”
It hit close to home.
“Can you talk to me, Beth?” he said gently. She looked down again, and he waited silently, watching her. “Hard, isn’t it?” he said. “I remember when I was little I always used to say, ‘Can I go outside?’ and my mother would say, ‘You can but you may not.’ It’s the other way around for you, I guess. You may, but you can’t.”
She looked up at him slowly and nodded. “I could, if it didn’t matter,” she said, and then, as if she had confessed too much, she turned away sharply and looked down into the cool gold in her beer glass.
“Afraid of me, Beth?”
She smiled a little at the heavily initialed table top, remembering the way she had asked Laura that same question, and then she looked up, straight ahead of her. “No,” she said.
“Then look at me and say so.”
She looked at him but it was very difficult to say it. It was difficult to say anything. She found herself just looking at him, wordless and wondering and excited. His arm tightened around her.
“No, Charlie,” she whispered.
“I think you are.”
“All right, I am.” She swayed away from him but he followed her to the wall of the booth and held her fast. The force of the physical attraction between them overcame their sanity. They wanted each other with a violent desire; wanted to fit their bodies together to forge two physical promises. And still Beth fought him.
“Beth,” he murmured.
She turned her head and his lips trailed over her cheek until his tongue found the corner of her lips. And then she turned back to him with the music and the noise and the excitement giving them privacy, and let her lips part a little and give themselves to him. All resistance washed out of her. She put her arms around him and held tight to him and when he stopped in surprise to gaze at her, she pulled his head down again and found his mouth, begged for it with her own, curiously thrilled with the light scratch of his beard, pressing her breasts against his broad flat chest as if she had suddenly found an excuse for their being.
“Beth!” he whispered in astonishment, putting his head down on her shoulder and holding her hard, feeling her tremble. Her response was so unexpected, so strong, that it caught him completely unaware.
“Jesus!” he said, and kissed her neck. “Let’s get out of here.” And sat up and started to pull her after him.
“Oh, no! No, Charlie, I—” She was frightened then, unwilling and unable to trust herself. They were safe in Maxie’s basement; they couldn’t
