Jealous cat, Helen thought, wrinkling her nose in distaste. She
had accepted long ago the fact that she would have no real
girlfriends at the Four Seasons. This knowledge did not
particularly upset her, because she had never been a person
to have girls as friends anyway. Even back in high school, the only
person she had ever really considered
a
friend was
Julie.
Even that had not been a friendship such as most girls had. Most
of Julie's time had been tied up with clubs and cheerleading and
other after-school activities. Their relationship had not
been based so much upon their own personalities as upon the fact
that the boys they dated went around together.
Still, it had been Julie whom she had taken home with her to see
her prom dress, and it was to her that Elsa had blabbed the bit
about the dress having come from the Good Will Store. Julie had
been gracious about that, and as far as Helen knew, she had never
mentioned it to anyone. It was the sort of disclosure that the
girls from Four Seasons would have leapt upon like hungry wolves.
She could hear it in her mind's ear, being jabbered up the line
from apartment to apartment-"Do you know where Helen Rivers
buys her dresses?"
Well, she didn't have to worry about that kind of thing any
longer. Helen permitted herself a smile of satisfaction. Let the
jealous little snips rake her over the coals just as long as the
raking was inspired by jealousy. Nobody minded being considered too
beautiful or too successful or too lucky. If those were the
things they were going to pounce on, let them pounce. No matter
what they said, they took vicarious pleasure in the fact that
Channel Five's Golden Girl lived here among them, spilling some of
the glamour of her own life over into their dull days. Nobody
could look at the way she dressed now and make any comments about
trips to the Good Will Store.
The move into the apartment had been the grandest event of
her life. Even Elsa had been impressed and had showed it
"How about our moving in together?" she had suggested in a rare
moment of sisterly friendliness. "I could chip in for part of the
rent, and we could take turns doing the cooking and stuff."
The suggestion was so preposterous that for a moment Helen had
been too stunned to answer.
"Oh, no!" she had said at last. And then, seeing her mother's
concerned face framed in the kitchen doorway, had added quickly.
"I'm going to rent a single. I'll be keeping all kinds of funny
hours, and I'll need to sleep in the mornings. Besides, we can't
both leave home at once. Who would be here to help Mom with the
children?"
"Don't you worry, Elsa," their mother had said, coming into the
room to put an arm around her older daughter's plump shoulders.
"Helen will be right here in town. She can come home to see us
whenever she wants to. And your time will come too. All little
birds fly the nest."
The glitter of envy in her sister's eyes had filled Helen with a
sense of half-guilty satisfaction.
"You couldn't afford it anyway, Elsa," she had said. "I'm going
to take an apartment at the Four Seasons, and the rents there are
out of this world."
And I did it, she thought now, beginning to move her arms in a
slow backstroke. I'm here, right where I said I'd be.
The Four Seasons was the first apartment complex she had
looked at, and the moment she had seen it, shining like some
special fairyland with the pool, the bright beds of flowers, the
wooden balconies, the gay crowd of moneyed, young singles who
lived there, she had known that this was the culmination of her
dreams.
"Barry will love it," she had told herself, and she had been
right. The incredulous expression on his face the first time she
had shown him into the blue and lavender apartment had been enough
to erase any shadows cast by Elsa's cruel comments.
"So this is how a Golden Girl lives!" he had commented,
and though the remark had been made half teasingly, there had been
a look of renewed interest in his eyes. Helen Rivers might not have
social background or a lot of education, but she certainly
wasn't a nothing.
Now she paddled leisurely to the end of the pool where Collie
was waiting for her. He had pulled himself up onto the edge and was
sitting there dripping, his brown hair plastered over his
forehead.
He said, "You are without doubt the laziest swimmer I've
ever seen."
"Well, it's a long pool."
She smiled up at him, knowing how well the cap framed her face.
She knew too how she looked in the brief, blue bikini-better than
the schoolteacher at the far side of the pool-better by a good bit
than any of the other girls who lived in the building. Of course,
she was Barry's girl, that was understood. But it didn't hurt
anything at all to have somebody else admire her.
"You'll have to look at the news tonight," she said, "and see if
I was able to get my hair dry. I can feel the water seeping in
around the cap."
"I won't be watching TV tonight, sweetie."
Collie's dark eyes regarded her without amusement. He made no
effort to reach down and draw her up on the ledge beside him. "I'm
going to be busy."
"Doing what?"
"I've got a date."
"You have?" She could not keep the surprise from her voice. "How
could you? I mean, I didn't think you were dating anybody."
"You thought I'd have fun eating my heart out while you mooned
over your battered lover?" The words were light, but there was
something in the tone that was not.
"No, of course not." Helen felt herself flushing with
embarrassment. Hadn't that, actually, been exactly what she had
thought? "What I meant was, I didn't know you had met anybody to
date yet. After all, you just moved in here less than a week
ago."
"There are other girls in the world besides the ones at Four
Seasons," Collie told her. "This particular girl I'm seeing
tonight is one I knew before I ever met you."
"Oh," Helen said awkwardly. "I didn't realize."
"You don't realize a lot of things," Collie said quietly. "You
don't know what I do when I'm not with you or where I come from or
what I'm interested in, or what I think about, or what
courses I'm planning to take this summer. You don't know where I've
worked, or how I live, or who the people are that I care about. You
haven't been interested enough to ask. Everything we've ever talked
about since the day we met has been you. And, of course, your
friend Barry."
"I guess you're right," Helen said weakly. "But you don't have
to make me sound so-so-self-centered."
"You said it. I didn't."
There was no laughter in his face. Suddenly, Helen realized that
she had almost never seen him laugh. Collie's face was dark and
solemn, a face that had been places and seen things, perhaps some
of them not very pleasant.
"You're a pretty girl," he said now. "I'll give you that. But
there are plenty of people in the world besides you. You might try
looking at them sometime. Some of them are interesting."
He reached out and touched her chin with a blunt, strong
forefinger.
"I'm
interesting. Look at me sometimes. Ask me things.
Listen to my answers. You just might find that I've got some things
to say that you would be interested in. I may soon have a more
important place in your life than you think."
Then, without waiting for her answer, he flipped himself onto
his feet.
"So long," he said, just loudly enough for his voice to carry
the length of the pool. "I'm off to get dressed for my date. She's
a cute little redhead. Can't be late picking her up!"
I don't believe it, Helen thought. I simply don't believe
it!
For a moment she remained there, stunned, gripping the side of
the pool, as bewildered as if a pet puppy had suddenly planted its
teeth in her wrist
He's
Collie,
she thought My friend Collie! How can he
possibly say things like that!
Then she heard the laughter and turned to see that the
schoolteacher in the deck chair had been joined by her roommate.
Collie's farewell had been easily overheard, and they were enjoying
it tremendously.
Slowly, Helen's astonishment began to be replaced by a
rising wave of anger.
He did that on purpose, she thought He was trying to
embarrass me. Why that-that-stinker!
"You said it. I didn't"-the words came back to her, and she
clenched her teeth in fury. It was all she could do to keep from
climbing out of the pool and racing up the stairs to intercept him
on the balcony.
But she couldn't do that It would look as though she were
chasing him. She would have to swim a while longer and then sit
around the pool for a time, chatting with people, as though Collie
Wilson didn't mean a thing to her. Which, of course, he didn't
In the meantime, who was this girl he had known before he met
her? And just how well did he know her?
chapter 16
Mrs. James put the last of the dinner dishes into the sink to
soak and poured herself a final cup of coffee to carry with her
into the living room.
It was a lovely evening. The windows stood open to the breeze,
and spring poured into the house with the faint sweetness of the
first hyacinths and the thin chirp of an early cricket
It's beautiful, Mrs. James thought, seating herself on the sofa
and placing the cup on the coffee table before her. It's a heavenly
night-things went well at school today-Julie's been accepted at
Smith. By rights I should be floating on air. So why do I feel so
strange?
Because she did. It was an odd, prickly feeling along the back
of her neck.
Something is going to happen, she thought. I don't know what it
will be or how I know it, but there is something in the air.
Something bad is going to happen, and there is nothing I can do to
prevent it.
It was not the first time she had had such a feeling.
Premonitions had come to her off and on throughout her adult life.
The first time it had happened had been when Julie was only eight.
It had been in the middle of the morning, a nice, normal morning
with the sunlight pouring down golden into the yard and the smell
of clean laundry on the line and the chatter of birds in the elm
tree. Mrs. James had been kneeling in the grass, pruning the roses,
when suddenly she had stiffened with the realization that something
was wrong.
Perhaps, she had thought, I have left a stove burner on or
forgotten an appointment Is there a phone call I was supposed to
return and have forgotten about? Is there an invitation I
haven't answered? What in the world could it be?
Chiding herself for her silliness, she had nevertheless
gone back into the house to check the stove and the engagement
calendar, and while she was there the phone had rung. It was the
school calling to say that Julie had fallen on the playground and
broken her arm.
The next time the feeling had come to her it had been one year
later. This time it had been so strong, so sharp, that it had been
almost a physical pain.
"What is it?" she had cried aloud, and she had not been
surprised a short time later to see a police car pull up in front
of the house. She had gone to the door and stood there waiting as
the two uniformed officers had come toward her across the
lawn.
"Mrs. James?" one of them had said. "I have bad news for you,
ma'am. There's been an accident Your husband's car-"
"Yes," Mrs. James had said dully. "Yes-I know."
She had gone to get her purse and had not seen the astonishment
in the men's eyes.
In the years since her husband's death, the feelings had
never occurred so strongly again. They had been there though, off
and on, and almost always they had predicted trouble.
There had been the time the light switch had shorted, and the
kitchen had caught fire. She had been at a PTA meeting, and had
called Julie who was visiting at a friend's house and had said,
"Run home and check on things, will you, dear? I have one of my
feelings."
Julie had reached home in time to call the fire department, and
the damage to the house had been minor.
Not that the feelings were foolproof and could be taken as
gospel. Last summer, for instance, there had been a time when she
could have sworn that she felt something terrible approaching. It
was during a period in which Julie was seeing a great deal of
Ray, and for a while Mrs. James had wondered if that was it, if the
young people's feelings for each other were growing too strong and
would create a problem. Fond as she was of Ray, she was aware of
his immaturity, and she foresaw another year of high school for
Julie and then hopefully college. The idea of a very young marriage
was not easy for her to accept.
In this case, however, the problem had not materialized.
There had been one long evening when she had lain awake, counting
the minutes, waiting for Julie and her friends to return from a
cookout in the mountains. That night she had
known
that
something would happen. Then, how silly she had felt, when Julie
had come home safely no later than midnight. Soon after that she
and Ray had stopped dating each other, and Ray had gone off to the
West Coast
Since then she had carried with her a strange, troubled feeling
about Julie, but it was nothing that she could pinpoint. Her
daughter had seemed different-quieter-more studious. Her
social life had fallen away to almost nothing, but that might
simply have been because Ray was gone.
"She's growing up," Mrs. James had told herself. "There's
nothing especially wrong. She has just changed from a lighthearted
little girl into a serious-minded young woman."
She was not sure that she completely favored the change. The
old, happy-go-lucky Julie had been fun to live with. But then, she
reminded herself, no mother really liked to see her child grow
up.