Charlie shook his head doubtfully. “Bud, I hate to risk it, boy. Not because I’m afraid for my own sake, but—God, it would be the end for Emmy if she got caught.”
“Charlie,” said Bud, as if he were talking to an uncooperative first-grader, “we won’t get caught. Who the hell’s gonna catch us? As long as I don’t have to call her, as long as you pick her up and everything, what’s to go wrong? Oh, Charlie, be a friend. I need help, believe me. How would you like it if they cut you off for months? And don’t tell me there’s other girls. I know that, I know. I want Emmy. Like you want Beth, I want Emmy… Charlie, I’d do it for you. I swear I would, boy.”
Charlie drained his beer and stabbed his cigarette into an ashtray. “You really want to see her that bad?” he said.
Bud looked up at the ceiling as if searching it for his self-control. “Yeah. I want to,” he said. “That bad.”
“Okay. I’ll pick her up. Thursday at three.”
“Charlie—” Bud grinned at him and gripped his hand.
“Be at the apartment. And by God, be out at five.”
“I will. Jesus, Charlie, I can’t tell you—”
“Never mind, boy. Save it. Just keep it quiet.”
“My God, you’re telling me!”
At three o’clock on Thursday afternoon Emily stood on the steps of Bevier Hall on Wright Street, chattering with some classmates. Charlie didn’t see her until she came down the walk with a friend, and then he pulled the car toward her and called to her.
“Emmy!” he said. “Hey, Em! How about a ride?”
She looked up, surprised, and broke into a sudden smile.
“Thanks!” she exclaimed, running over. “Can you take Jane too?”
Charlie was alarmed. “Where’s she going?”
“Gamma Delt house.” The girl thrust a pleasant young face over Emmy’s shoulder.
“Okay, hop in,” said Charlie.
“It’s right on the way. I hope you don’t mind,” Emmy said, sensing his reserve.
“Not at all.” He had little to say until Jane was delivered and they were a mile off course from the apartment. He turned the car around while Emily watched him with big questioning eyes.
“Where’re we going?” she asked.
“We’re going to my apartment, Emily,” he said.
“Your apartment?”
“Yeah.” He looked at her and said with a smile, “Bud’s there.” Emily gasped. And then she cried.
“Emily!” he said. “My God, don’t tell me you don’t want to go!”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I do. You scared me, Charlie. Oh, is he really there?” She put a hand on his arm.
“Yeah, he’s there all right.”
“Charlie—it’s safe, isn’t it? I mean, we won’t get caught?”
“No, Em, don’t worry. Mitch is out for the afternoon. I won’t be there. You’ll have till five o’clock.”
“Ohhh,” said Emily with an uncertain smile. “Charlie, thanks.”
“Don’t thank me, honey. I wasn’t very nice about it. I don’t want you to get into trouble. But I guess there’s not much chance of that. But Emmy—”
“Yes?” Her heart gave a thump.
“Don’t tell anyone about it. Not anyone. Not even Beth. Understand?”
“Yes. Not even Beth?”
“Not even Beth. Promise?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Charlie dropped her off. She walked up to the door with her knees shaking a little, opened it, and went in. For a moment her sun-dazzled eyes saw nothing and then she heard Bud jump to his feet. “Emmy!” he said. He pushed the door shut behind her, and held her against it, leaning on her and kissing her almost savagely.
He pulled her against him and said, “Oh, Emmy. Oh, God, God, God, Emmy! Darling….” He could not have said more or said it better. He looked at her as if she were all miraculously new to him. He pulled her down and took her like a man who had never had a woman before and thought never to have another. He took her over and over and over and yet again in a fight with time that raised his passion to a frenetic pitch and made a wild, tireless thing of Emily. And then they lay beside each other, whispered to each other of love and loneliness and relentless longing. Bud wrapped her in his arms, still lightheaded with emotion, and said, “Emmy, darling, I love you.”
“Oh, Bud,” she half sobbed. “They’ll never do this to us again.”
“Never,” he echoed. “Oh, Em—I’d do anything for you. I love you, chicken.”
She clung to him hopefully. “Anything, Bud?”
“Anything,” he murmured, kissing her. “They’ll never take you away from me again.”
“Bud—” Her voice was light and supplicating. “Marry me?”
“What?” He stopped kissing her just long enough to raise himself on one elbow and gaze at her. “Marry you?”
She held her breath, not daring to answer nor yet to keep still, and her perishable perfection ensnared him, enflamed him, wrenched his heart like a lovely tune.
“Yes, Em. I guess I would. I never thought of it, but I guess I would. I will if you want it, Emmy. I’d be one hell of a lousy husband, but I love you. Maybe that’ll make up for it.”
“Oh, Bud,” she cried softly. They leaned toward each other until their lips were together again, and far away, as in the gentlest of reveries, the latch clicked and the door opened. They lay, quiet and complete, whole and serene in each other’s need, fulfilled and reassured, lovely and beautifully human.
“Emily!” A poison-tipped voice split them asunder; a girl’s voice, high and hard with indignation.
“Oh, my God!” cried a boy at almost the same time. “Oh, my God!” he said again, helplessly.
Bud and Emmy sat up suddenly in a fit of alarm, gazing at the silhouettes, straining against the head-on sun streaming at them from the window to see their faces.
“I’m terribly sorry,” said the boy. “I didn’t know. I mean—God. We’d better go, Mary Lou.”
“We’d better go, Emily,” said Mary Lou. “You and I.”
Bud looked at his watch. “But it’s only four-thirty,” he said.
Beth found Emmy just before dinner, face down on the couch and sobbing. The shades were all pulled down and the room was
