Mrs. Bridge (13 page)

“You need another haircut/’ she said automatically, noticing how shaggy he looked. “And take that pencil from behind your ear. People will think you’re a grocery clerk.”

“What?” said Douglas, blinking.

“What on earth possesses you to always use the back door?”

“I don’t know,” said Douglas.

“Well, then/’ said Mrs. Bridge, “why don’t you do like everyone else?”

Douglas appeared to be thinking this over. Finally he said in the same vacuous tone, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Bridge, “as long as we have a front door we might as well use it.”

Douglas said he guessed that was right, but he did not sound convinced.

There was no end to the problems of adolescence. Carolyn was beginning to blossom, not only in front but in back, and as she had gotten into the habit of walking with her spine unnecessarily arched she soon became known among the high school boys as “Rumpy/* One of these boys, calling for the first time at her home, absently referred to her by that name. The next day Mrs. Bridge, who was crocheting a nice muffler in case anybody wanted one, asked her about the name.

“That’s nothing. You should hear what they call Ruth/’ said Carolyn.

Mrs. Bridge resumed crocheting with a displeased expression.

Mrs. Bridge, emptying wastebaskets, discovered a dirty comb in Ruth’s basket.

‘“What’s this doing here?” Ruth inquired late that afternoon when she got home and found the comb on her dresser.

“I found it in the wastebasket. What was it doing there!”

Ruth said she had thrown it away.

“Do you think we’re made of money?” Mrs. Bridge demanded. “When a comb gets dirty you don’t throw it away, you wash it, young lady.”

“It cost a nickel/* Ruth said angrily. She flung her books onto the bed and stripped off her sweater.

“Nickels don’t grow on trees/* replied Mrs. Bridge, irritated by her manner.

“Nickels don’t grow on trees,” Ruth echoed. She was standing by the window with her hands on her hips; now, exasperated, she pointed to her father’s new Chrysler, which was just then turning into the driveway.

“Put the comb in a basin of warm water with a little ammonia and let it soak/’ Mrs. Bridge went on. ‘In a few minutes you can rinse the “

“I know, I know, I know!” Ruth unzipped her skirt, stepped out of it, and threw it at the closet. She sat down on her bed and began to file her nails.

“So is a nickel going to break us up?** she asked, scowling.

“I wash my comb and I expect you to do the same. It won’t hurt either of us/* replied Mrs. Bridge. “Taking out without putting in will soon reach bottom/* she added and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

For a few minutes Ruth sat on the bed quietly filing her nails and chewing her lower lip; then she snatched the comb and broke it in halt

Christianity meant nothing to Ruth, at least so far as Mrs. Bridge could determine. Ruth went to church reluctantly, sullen and uncommunicative, until she was old enough to defy her mother, knowing her father did not care if she went or not; and when Mrs. Bridge pleaded with her, saying, “Goodness, anyone would think you were a South Sea Islander!” Ruth only sighed and murmured, “Mother, let me be.”

Douglas reacted quite differently; lie objected strenuously when he was a small boy, but later, discovering the church had a basketball team on which he might play i he attended with reasonable regularity, he became more manageable.

Carolyn was no trouble at all. As a child she seemed to enjoy Sunday school, and when she was fourteen she joined the choir. Before long she was reading her Bible at home during the week and, on Sundays, listening quite attentively to the mellow sermons of Dr. Foster. She also joined the Wednesday evening group of teen-agers who met In the church basement.

Mrs. Bridge customarily drove Carolyn to these Wednesday evening meetings and allowed one of the older boys or girls to bring her home. She felt a deep sense of pleasure, a pleasure that bordered on real happiness, whenever she thought of Carolyn’s participation. She herself had never grown as close to the church as she would have liked, though she did not know quite why, and in consequence she blamed herself for Ruth’s failure, and, to a lesser extent, for the fact that If it were not for the basketball team Douglas would drop out, Mrs. Bridge felt proud and reassured each Wednesday evening. There, on the church steps, she beheld a group of nicely dressed, clean, smiling, courteous young people. Invariably they appeared cheerful and confident. Surely, these faces told her, no evil can befall us. Surely, she thought, none would.

The choir, the Sunday sermons, the Wednesday evening group all this failed to satisfy Carolyn’s appetite for religious experience. She became Insatiable. She spent hours reading the Bible; she read the Apocrypha; she had long talks with Dr. Foster. It was not enough. One evening she told her mother site intended to join a group of evangelists*

Mrs. Bridge immediately saw eight or ten lower-middle- class people on a downtown street corner, the women in bonnets and dark shapeless gowns and the men somehow reminding her of Mr* Schumann, who led the high-school band. Tubas in the rain, a tambourine being passed around she had always looked upon these people with a mixture of pity and respect, and, if she could not avoid the tambourine, she put a quarter in it.

“Well,” she said, “it’s an awfully nice idea, o course. I just w r onder if you’d be happy doing it. Let’s see what your father says.”

Mr. Bridge came home about nine o’clock. His briefcase was packed and he was harassed and short-tempered; he told Harriet to fix him a sandwich and some coffee and bring it into his study. Carolyn knew it was a poor moment to announce her decision, but she was too thrilled to wait.

“Nonsense,” he told her when she stopped him on the stairs. “Youll continue with your schooling. I’ve already put in your application at the university.”

That ended the matter. Carolyn was enraged, but, like every other member of the family, with the possible exception of Ruth, who seemed unafraid of him, she did not dare argue.

Mrs. Bridge sympathized with Carolyn, putting an arm around her waist and saying gently, “I expect Dad knows best. But youVe an awfully sweet person, Corky, to think of an idea like that.”

The telephone rang and It was Naomi Gattenberger, the fattest girl in the high school. She always wore a brilliant red coat that hung down to her ankles and a pair of shell-rimmed glasses studded with rhinestones. Her father had recently made a fortune in the used-car business.

“How are you, Naomi?” Mrs. Bridge asked.

“Just fine,” said Naomi.

“I saw your mother the other day.”

“That’s what she said/*

As this exhausted their common interests, Mis. Bridge said, “I’ll see if Gorky’s come home yet.” She put down the receiver and went to look, but Carolyn had not returned from having her hair set.

“I didn’t want to talk to her anyway/* said Naomi. “I’m chairman of the Activities Committee for the sorority dance and we decided on you for one of the chaperons/’

“Why, how nice! This Is quite a surprise/*

Naomi guessed maybe It was a surprise.

“Well when Is the dance to be?” Mrs. Bridge stalled,

“Two weeks from Friday from eight o’clock to twelve-thirty In the Elbow Room/”

Still fighting for time to set up her defenses Mrs. Bridge asked about the Elbow Room.

“It’s downtown. It used to be a pool hall, I think, only they took out the pool tables.” There was a pause. Naomi added hopefully, “Lots of fraternities have parties there, I think.”

“It’s very nice, I’m sure/*

Naomi guessed probably it was.

Another pause ensued, a longer one, during which Mrs. Bridge could hear Naomi breathing. Obviously the question had already been put and some kind of an answer was expected.

“Well, just a minute, Naomi, 111 see if we’re busy that evening.” She slid the tabulator of her plastic engagement book to the proper date and pressed: up popped the cover and Mrs. Bridge found, to her dismay, that nothing was planned.

“I sure do hope you can do it,” Naomi said miserably. “I already called up almost all the mothers.”

Mrs. Bridge was a bit disconcerted by this confession, but she was touched by Naomi’s despair. Then, too, Carolyn had been a sorority member for more than a year and during this time Mrs. Bridge had not been called upon to serve as a chaperon at any of the parties, so she said, “That’ll be grand, Naomi. I’ll make a note of It right now.” And while jotting it down she asked, “What sort of decorations are you planning?”

Naomi said they hadn’t gotten a majority vote on anything,, but probably it would be a Hawaiian party.

“Well, you have lots of time. I’m sure it will be exciting.”

Naomi sounded despondent. “I sure do hope so.”

This seemed to conclude their business, so, after a pause, Mrs. Bridge said, “I’ll tell Carolyn you called.”

“She knows.”

‘Ohl Well, thank you for asking me, Naomi. I’m flattered.”

“You’re welcome,” said Naomi phlegmatically. “Well, good-by,”

Mrs. Bridge replaced the receiver and murmured, “Oh, dear!” for it sounded like a dull evening.

The Elbow Room was decorated with Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling and with hundreds of yards of crepe paper lividly criss-crossing the windows, framing the doors, and connecting the lanterns. Mrs. Bridge, who was quite sensitive to odors, was certain the moment she entered that it had Indeed been used as a pool hall, If not worse. The orchestra consisted of a piano, a complicated arrangement of drums, a bass viol, and five saxophones, all played by high-school boys. There was a girl about thirteen years old on the stage; she was wrapped as tight as a mummy In a piece of flowered silk and it was evident she Intended to sing. Mrs. Bridge, surveying this scene, found there were three other chaperons, two of them high-school teachers of whom she had heard a great deal and whose photographs Carolyn had pointed out to her in the school yearbook, and a swarthy young man named De Falk who was the father of one of the sorority girls.

The first half of the evening moved along smoothly enough; Mrs. Bridge thought the orchestra played remarkably well, considering, and the dancers some of them at least looked as though they had been accustomed to this sort of thing for years. The boys In the stag line stood around with their hands in their pockets and did a great deal of staring and whispering. Later in the evening a fight broke out near the punch bowl, and shortly after this two boys in tuxedos began burning holes in a lantern with their cigarettes and had to be warned by Mr. De Falla that If they did it again they would have to leave. Naomi was there in white taffeta, enormous, alone, and wretched; Mrs. Bridge smiled to her and talked with her occasionally and wondered if, as a chaperon, she could flatly order one of the stags to dance with Naomi.

She had a feeling there would be trouble if she attempted this.

Carolyn danced by every few minutes; Mrs. Bridge waved and smiled and during the evening was introduced to a number of boys. Mr. De Falla asked her to dance, and though she did not want to she felt it might look rude if she refused. He danced with a rather wild, swooping motion, but otherwise proved to be more cultured than she had expected and she found herself half-hoping he would ask for another dance. But he did not; when the music ended he escorted her back to her chair and resumed talking to the female mathematics teacher, who was wearing a low-cut gray satin gown, with a gardenia looking quite mashed in the crevice.

About eleven o’clock a game of dice was discovered in the cloakroom by Mr. De Falla, because the sentinel was at the punch bowl, and the gamblers were dismissed from the party. Beyond this there were no incidents until shortly after midnight. This last affair was witnessed by Mrs. Bridge alone. She never mentioned it to anyone.

She had been sitting quietly, partly concealed by the piano, for quite a while when she noticed a couple dancing in the corner where the lantern had burned out. Their motions were definitely erotic, though in time to the music. In a lesser degree such dancing had been evident throughout the evening, modern dancing being more suggestive than the dancing of Mrs. Bridge’s youth; but, because the other chaperons had taken it all without comment, she had not objected. This couple, however, thinking themselves un-observed in the darkened corner, were consciously beyond the limit: Mrs. Bridge knew it immediately from the girl’s apprehensive eyes. The boy was dancing, shuffling, in-sinuating himself, with his eyes closed and his nose thrust into the flower she wore in her hair, and on his pimpled face lay a sleepy smile. The girl, too, was dreamily smiling, though she remained alert. Mrs. Bridge leaned forward in her chair and attracted the girl’s attention; instantly the couple broke apart and went dancing rapidly to the other end of the room and on out the door. She saw them both look back to see if she had gotten up and was coming after them. She never saw them again and never learned who they were. She did not ask. This was the thing she remembered longest and most vividly about the sorority party, and the thing that caused her to look more carefully at the boys who came by the house for Carolyn. The horrifying part of it had been that the girl’s back was turned to her partner.

Carolyn was dating a clumsy, bumptious boy with crew-cut hair and an idiotic laugh whose name was Jay Duchesne, and about whom Mrs. Bridge had her doubts. Duchesne chewed gum with awful assurance and reputedly drove too fast, but because she wanted Carolyn to learn to judge people she said nothing, always greeting Duchesne with a neutral smile and saying, “Good evening, Jay. Won’t you have a chair? Carolyn will be down in a few minutes/

“Why not?”
Duchesne would answer, and after shaking his own hand in congratulation he would sit and twirl his hat on his index finger and chew gum with a loud snapping noise.

Until Carolyn got in at night Mrs. Bridge would lie awake or would sit up reading. Carolyn knew this and consequently talked to Duchesne in very low tones at the front door; Mrs. Bridge could hear them murmuring because their voices carried much farther in the still night air than they realized. One evening, after they had been saying good night at the door for about an hour, she heard the next-door neighbor’s fox terrier which was often left out overnight begin to growl, and she concluded that Duchesne must be molesting Carolyn. Throwing back the covers she hurriedly pulled on her robe and went to the banister, prepared to call out, but at that moment a cat hissed; with a sigh of relief Mrs. Bridge prepared to go back to bed. Then, however, she heard Duchesne ask Carolyn for a kiss.