S
HE
had found my towel and was dropping her terry-cloth robe beside it by the time I reached her. I grinned at her. “What are you doing down here?” I asked. “We didn’t expect you until the day after tomorrow.”
“Maxie had to go out of town,” she explained. “I have the whole week-end to myself.”
I was curious. “What happened?”
She was tucking her hair under a bathing cap. “How do I know?” She shrugged. “It’s none of my business. All I care about is that I can spend a week-end down here with you.”
The meaning of her words didn’t reach me until we were in the water again. She hadn’t said anything about Ben. Just me. I turned my face in the water and looked at her. She wasn’t a bad swimmer for a girl.
“Did yuh see Ben?” I called to her.
“Yeah,” she replied. “He told me you were out here.” She stopped swimming and treaded water. “The water is wonderful,” she cried. “I’m all out of breath.”
I swam over to her and put my arms under her shoulders. “Rest a minute,” I said. “You’ll get it back.”
She weighed nothing in the water. I could feel the firmness of her body as the waves pushed us back and forth. A familiar warmth began to rise in me. Quickly I let her go.
She turned in the water and looked at me. “Why did you let me go, Danny?” she asked.
“The waves were getting too much for me,” I explained awkwardly.
She shook her head. “What’s the reason, Danny? Don’t kid me.”
I stared at her. Her face was small and cute under her yellow cap, her eyes fresh and young as if the water had swept away everything she had ever known, all the hurt, all the knowledge. There was no use trying to hide anything from her. You don’t hold out on a friend.
“I’m making it easy on myself,” I said frankly.
“How?” she persisted.
I stared at her. “I’m not a machine,” I said, “and you’re beautiful.”
I could see she was pleased. “Nothing else?” she asked.
“What else could there be?” I was puzzled.
She hesitated a moment. “What I am?” she asked slowly.
I shook my head emphatically. “You’re my friend,” I said. “Nothing else matters.”
Her hands were on my arms and she was holding on to me in the water, her eyes scanning my face. “Sure, Danny?”
I nodded. “Sure.” I took a deep breath. “I just don’t want to louse things up, that’s all.”
She looked down at the water. “And if you kissed me, you think that might louse things up, is that it, Danny?”
“It might.”
Her eyes turned up to mine. “Because you’re in love with someone else, Danny?”
I nodded silently.
A curious hurt came into her eyes. “But how do you know, if you
don’t even try, Danny?” she asked. “There are many kinds of love that you may not even know about.”
Her lips were moving tremulously. There was a shining moisture in her eyes that hadn’t come from the salt water, I pulled her closer to me and kissed her. Her mouth was soft and tasted from the salt and yet was sweet and warm. She closed her eyes when I kissed her and she was limp against me. I looked down into her face.
She turned her head away and looked out into the sea. I bent my head to hear what she was saying, her voice was so low. “I know you can never love me the way you love her, Danny, and that is the way it should be. But there is something for us that we have to give each other. Maybe it’s not very much or for a very long time, but for whatever it is or as long as it lasts, let’s make it important.”
I didn’t answer. There was nothing I could say.
She turned her face up to me. She looked very young. “Remember what I told you, Danny? It was: ‘Never for love, always for money. Never for myself.’ For once I want it to be different, for once I want it to be for me. For what I want, not for what I’m paid.”
I pressed my mouth gently to her lips. “It will be as you want it, Sarah,” I said softly. One thing I had already learned: you don’t pay off friends by telling them that you haven’t got for them what they want from you. And if they are willing to accept a reasonable facsimile for the real thing, you’re not fooling them; they’re fooling themselves.
She was drying my back with the towel. “I didn’t realize it until just now,” she said, “but you’re almost black and your hair is burned white from the sun. Nobody would recognize you now.”
I grinned over my shoulder. “You recognized me.”
“I knew where to find you,” she said quickly. A puzzled expression crossed her face. “That reminds me. Do you know Sam Gottkin, the concessionaire?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “What about him?”
She looked up into my face. “He was down to see Maxie about you the other day.”
“What did he want?” I asked quickly.
“He wanted to know where you were. There was an Italian boy with him. Zep, I think his name was. You know him?”
I nodded. “He’s my girl’s brother. How’d they get to Maxie?”
“They had heard that Maxie was looking all over for you the night of the fight, so they came down to find out why. Sam and Maxie are old friends. Sam said he didn’t know you were gone until your sister came up to see him. Why would she do that?”
“I worked for Sam before,” I explained quickly. “Besides, Sam was all set to manage me when I turned pro. What did they say?”
“Maxie told them what he knew. That was nothing.”
“Did he tell them why he was looking for me?” I asked.
She nodded her head. “Sam flew into a rage at that. He told Maxie that he should have kept his hands off you. He called him all kinds of names.”
I looked at her wonderingly. “Maxie took it?”
“Not entirely,” she answered. “Maxie felt that Sam should have given him a piece of you since you came out of Maxie’s territory. They had a big argument then. Maxie said when he caught up with you, you’d be taken care of. Sam said that he should do nothing until he let him know first, that he had a score of his own to square.”
I stared at her. That really did it. There was nobody I could depend on now. “Did Maxie agree to that?” I asked.
“He agreed to it then,” she answered, “because afterwards they all sat down and had a few drinks and talked business. Then Sam called your sister and made a date for that night and he left. When he had gone, Maxie stamped up and down the room and swore that if he found you, Sam would never know about it until afterwards.”
That was about what I expected from him. He wouldn’t act any other way. Her next question really caught me by surprise.
“Is your sister engaged to Sam Gottkin?”
My mouth hung open. “Why do you ask that?” I stammered.
“Because one of the reasons Sam gave Maxie that he didn’t want you touched until he saw you was that you are his fiancée’s brother, and if anything happened to you it might queer all his plans.” Her voice was curious. “Didn’t you know that?”
I shook my head slowly. “Uh-uh. I didn’t even know they had met.” I wondered how that happened. It seemed stranger than anything else I had heard. Sam and Mimi—somehow I couldn’t believe that.
I
WAS
seated below the counter when Ben began to swear. “Goddam them kids!” he muttered vehemently.
“What’s the matter?” Sarah asked.
He turned to her, his good arm waving at the beach. “A customer
was coming over here, but one of them kids got to him first. It’s a wonder we can make a livin’ at all. There oughtta be a way of stoppin’ them.”
“The cops chase them when they see them,” Sarah said.
“But most of the time they’re too busy watchin’ the dames to even bother.” He stamped away from her voicelessly, his wooden leg dragging along the floor into the back room.
I got to my feet and stretched. “He sounded mad,” I said.
Her eyes were troubled. “He has a right to be,” she answered. “This place was his big dream and he wants to make a go of it. The way things are going, he’ll just clear expenses for the summer. He won’t make enough to carry him through the winter. That means he’ll have to come to me for money again. He doesn’t like that. He’s a pretty independent guy.”
Suddenly I was excited. What a fool I had been not to see it before! Sam had made a buck from his concessions because he cut his boys in for a fair shake. Why couldn’t Ben do the same thing down here?
I turned to Sarah. She and Ben were standing at the register looking out on the beach. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around. “The kids’ll work for you same as anyone else,” I said.
He looked confused.
I jerked a thumb at the beach. “The kids out there. Why don’t you take them in?”
“Don’t be a jerk,” he snorted. “I aint’ got the time to be chasin’ after them to collect what they owe.”
“You don’t have to chase ’em,” I said. “They pay in advance for their stuff.”
“Half only,” he pointed out. “The rest you have to hustle ’em for. Besides, why should they do business with me? They can get the same thing from anybody.”
“There must be a way to get around that,” I said. “Supposin’ we don’t take any dough in advance? What if they left us somethin’ for a deposit? Like a watch, or a bike? Then they wouldn’t have to lay out any dough an’ they’d come to us.”
“Forget it,” Ben said disgustedly. He picked up a rag and began to wipe the counter. “Besides, we haven’t the room to handle them.”
Sarah’s voice made him look up. “You got all that room in the back that isn’t being used,” she said. “You could put a cold locker in there.”
“But, Sarah,” he protested, “where’ll we get the time? I just can’t go out and get the kids to come in here just because I say so.”
“I’ll get the kids for you,” I said quickly. “I’ll get all the kids you want.”
She looked at me, then turned to her brother. “Well?” she asked.
He hesitated a moment, not answering.
She smiled slowly at him. “What’s the matter, Ben?” she asked. “You always said you wanted to make a real buck. This is the first good shot you can get at it. Or don’t you like money any more?”
An embarrassed grin began to spread over his face. He turned gratefully toward me. “Okay, Danny,” he said, “we’ll try it.
Sometimes
I forget I don’t have to go things by myself any more.”
The battered old alarm clock on the shelf read eleven when Ben looked up from the table. The light from the solitary bulb glowing overhead cast weary shadows on his face. He pushed the small amount of change remaining on the table toward his sister. “Here, Sarah,” he said in a tired voice. “You count the rest of it. I’m dead.”
Silently she began to run the silver through her fingers and he turned to me. “What a week!” he said exhaustedly. “I never been so tired on a Sunday night before. Those kids knock hell outta you.”
I smiled. “I told yuh. I figure we grossed about eight hundred bucks since we started Thursday morning.
He nodded his head, faintly smiling. “You were right, kid,” he admitted. “I gotta hand it to yuh.”
Sarah finished rolling the change into small paper wrappers. She stood up. “I never saw so much change in my life,” she said.
Ben looked at her meaningfully. She nodded to him and he turned back to me. “Me an’ Sarah want you to know we appreciate this, Danny. You done a lot for me, an’ from now on you get twenty-five per cent. of the hustler’s take.”
I stared at him in surprise. A lump came up in my throat. I’d never figured on anything that good. I stared helplessly at them. I couldn’t speak.
He spoke quickly. “What’s wrong, Danny? Ain’t that enough?”
Finally I managed to shake my head and smile. “I—I didn’t expect that, Ben. I just don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, kid,” he said. “It’s Sarah here. She thought it’s only fair that you should drag down a piece, because if it weren’t for you we would have none of it.”
Sarah was smiling gently at me from the shadow just beyond the table. “It’s only right,” she said.
Our eyes met. I didn’t speak. There are some things you just can’t say, some feelings you just can’t find voice for. I owed her a lot. If it wasn’t for what she’d done I might not even be around right now.
Ben’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “I wish there was a hot bath
in this place, I sure could use one and then a real bed to sleep on instead of this damn’ old cot.”
Sarah looked at him. “Why don’t the both of you come down to the hotel with me? We can afford it now. You can get a room and a bath there and spend the night in comfort.”
“That’s the best idea I heard all night,” Ben said enthusiastically. He turned to me. “What do you say, kid?”
I shook my head. The Half Moon Hotel was too big a place. It drew a big crowd from all over the city. I was better off staying back here. “No, Ben,” I said quickly. “You go with Sarah. One of us better stay down here to keep an eye on things.”
He looked at me doubtfully, then at Sarah. “What do you think?” he asked.
She glanced at me and I shook my head slightly. She caught on quick. “I think Danny has the right idea,” she said slowly. “You come along with me, Ben. Danny will watch the place.”
The door closed behind them and then I went back to the cot and stretched out. I lit a cigarette and reached up and turned the switch. The glow of my cigarette was the only light in the room.
I was tired. I could just feel it now, stealing in weary waves up from my aching legs. I wished I could go with them. The hot bath sounded like home to me. But I couldn’t afford the chance. If Sarah stayed down there, maybe someone else who knew me would show up in the hotel too. At least down here I knew I was safe.
I ground my cigarette out on the floor beneath the cot and put my hands behind my head, staring up through the darkness. I could hear sound of footsteps on the boardwalk over the concession. People were always walking up there. It was a monotonous, muffled sort of wooden sound and after a while seemed to keep time with the beating of your heart.
How strange it all was! Even now I found it hard to believe. I’d been away from home almost two months. I wondered if the family ever thought about me. I guessed Mamma did, but I didn’t know about the rest of them. Papa would be too stubborn ever to admit to himself that he did.
I turned my face into my arms and closed my eyes. The muffled beat of the boardwalk ran into my body and loosened the tension in me. I dozed.
There was a knock on the door. I bolted upright in the dark and flipped on the light-switch. By the clock it was almost one in the morning.
The knock came on the door again and I got out of bed, rubbing my eyes sleepily as I walked to the door. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. I had just wanted to rest a little while and then go out for a bite.
“Who is it?” I called.
“Sarah,” came the answer.
I opened the door and looked out. “What are you doing back here?” I asked in surprise.
Her face was luminous in the glow from the boardwalk. “I couldn’t sleep,” she answered, “so I went out for a walk and passed here. I wondered whether you were still awake.”
I stepped back from the doorway. “I was just grabbing a nap before going out for a bite.”
She came into the bungalow and I closed the door behind her. “Did Ben get his bath?” I asked.
She nodded. “And went right to sleep. He’s very happy—the happiest I can remember since his accident.”
“I’m glad,” I said, going back to the cot and sitting down.
She sat in a small chair opposite me. “Got a cigarette?” she asked.
I fished a pack out of my pocket and tossed it to her. She caught it and took one out. “Match?” she asked.
I got up and lit her cigarette for her, then went back and sat down. She smoked silently while I watched her. At last she spoke again. “How old are you, Danny?”
“Eighteen,” I said.
She was silent again, her eyes blue and thoughtful. Her cigarette burned down to her fingers and she tamped it out in a plate on the table next to her. “I’ve got to go back tomorrow,” she said slowly.
I nodded. “I know.”
Her lips tightened. “I wish I didn’t have to go, but he’ll be back.”
I watched her silently.
She stood up, almost startling me by the violence of her movement. “I hate him, I hate him,” she said bitterly. “I wish I’d never seen him!”
I tried to make a joke out of it. “Me too.”
There was a hurt, frightened look on her face. “What do you know about him?” she asked in a harsh voice. “What can you know about him? He’s never done to you what he’s done to me. He couldn’t. You’re a man.”
The quiet sound of her tears filled the small room. I walked over to her slowly, put my arms around her shoulders, and pulled her head down against my chest. My touch brought a fresh paroxysm of tears.
“The things he’s done to me, Danny!” she cried, her voice almost
muffled against my shirt. “The things he’s made me do! Nobody can ever know, nobody would ever believe it. There’s a perverted madness in him that you can’t see. I’m so frightened to go back, I’m so afraid of him, of what he’ll do to me!”
I held her shaking shoulders firmly. “Then don’t go back, Sarah,” I said softly. “Ben’s doing all right now. You don’t have to go back.”
Her wide tortured eyes stared up at me. “I must go, Danny,” she whispered. “I have to. If I don’t, he’ll come after me. I can’t let him do that. Then Ben will know everything.”
There was nothing I could say about that. She was crying again. I brushed my hand over her soft hair and pressed my lips against it. “Some day, Sarah,” I said in a low voice, “you won’t have to go back.”
She turned her face swiftly and her lips pressed against mine. They clung to me with frantic desperation. Her eyes were closed tightly, the last tear hanging perilously on the fringe of her lashes. I held my breath a moment. So many things were wrong. But there was so much I owed her, I could never hope to pay her back. With my little finger I brushed the last tear from her eye.
Her mouth opened slightly and I pressed my lips against hers. “Danny!” Her voice was happy in my ear. “Danny, I can’t stand on my feet!”
Quietly we moved toward the bed.
She was agile, expert, and proficient. And yet with all the knowledge that I knew was in her, there was something about her that made me understand. And for that understanding I loved her.
It was Sarah with whom I shared my bed that night. Not Ronnie.
Later in the week Ben told me she was quitting her job with Maxie Fields. They were planning to go out West together to open up a new business. They hoped I’d be coming along.