Peyton Place (10 page)

“Hi, Selena,” called Allison warmly, her antisocial mood of the previous afternoon forgotten.

“Hi, kid,” said Selena in the oddly deep voice which Allison found so intriguing. “What'll we do today?”

The question was rhetorical. On Saturday afternoons the girls always sauntered slowly down the streets of the town, looking into shop windows and pretending that they were grown up and married to famous men. They studied every piece of merchandise in the Peyton Place stores, carefully picking and choosing what they would buy for themselves, for their houses and for their children.

“That suit would be adorable on little Clark, Mrs. Gable,” they said to one another.

And, nonchalantly, “Since I divorced Mr. Powell, I just can't seem to work up much interest in clothes any more.”

Together, they spent every cent Allison could beg from her mother on junk jewelry, motion picture magazines and ice-cream sundaes. Sometimes Selena had a little money which she had earned by doing some odd job for a local housewife, and then she and Allison would go to a movie at the Ioka Theater. Later, they would sit at the soda fountain in Prescott's Drugstore and eat toasted tomato and lettuce sandwiches and drink Coca-Cola. Then, instead of pretending that they were married to motion picture stars, they would play at being well-to-do local housewives out for an afternoon stroll and stopping for tea while their infants slept peacefully in perambulators parked outside Prescott's front door. Allison held a drinking straw, ripped in half as if it were a cigarette, and carried on what she considered a grown-up conversation.

“When Mr. Beane decided to start up the movie theater,” she said, “he didn't have enough money, so he borrowed from an Irishman named Kelley. That's why the theater is named the Ioka. It stands for I Owe Kelley All.”

She drew a great deal of satisfaction out of knowing these little town anecdotes and from repeating them, with her own embellishments, while she picked imaginary shreds of tobacco daintily off her tongue. Selena was always an appreciative audience, never mean or stinting with her “Oh's” or “My goodnesses,” or her breathlessly disbelieving “No's!”

“Oh, my goodness. Did Mr. Beane ever pay Mr. Kelley back?” asked Selena.

“Oh, sure,” said Allison. And then, after a moment's pause in which a better answer occurred to her, “No, wait a minute. He didn't. No, he never paid Mr. Kelley back. He ascended with the funds.”

Selena slipped out of her grown-up character long enough to ask, indignantly, “What do you mean, ascended?” She always considered it as hitting below the belt when Allison used words which Selena had never heard of, and oftentimes she thought that Allison made up her own words as she went along.

“Oh, you know,” said Allison. “Ascended. Ran away. Yes, Mr. Beane ascended with all the funds, and Mr. Kelley never got any of his money back.”

“Allison MacKenzie, you're making that up!” protested Selena, the grown-up conversational game now completely forgotten. “Why, I saw Amos Beane right on Elm Street just yesterday. You're making the whole thing up!”

“Yes,” said Allison, laughing, “I am.”

“Absconded,”
said Mrs. Prescott severely from behind the soda fountain. “And he never did. That's how gossip gets started, young lady. Outrageous lies, multiplied and divided and multiplied again.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Allison meekly.

“Gossip's just like amoebas,” said Mrs. Prescott. “Multiply, divide and multiply.”

Allison and Selena, struck with a sudden fit of giggles, ran outdoors, leaving their half-finished sandwiches. They clung together on the sidewalk, laughing hysterically, while Mrs. Prescott looked on disapprovingly from behind the plate glass window.

When these long Saturday afternoons were over, the two girls went to Allison's house where they spent many enchanted hours making up each other's faces with minute quantities of cosmetics which they had obtained by sending magazine coupons to companies who offered free samples.

“I think this ‘Blue Plum’ is just the right shade of lipstick for you, Selena.”

And Selena, with lips that looked like swollen Concord grapes, would say, “This ‘Oriental #2’ is swell on you, kid. Gives you a swell color.”

Allison, studying the reflection that looked back at her and which now looked rather like that of a pallid Indian, would say, “Do you really think so? You're not just
saying
that?”

“No, really. It brings out your eyes.”

This game had to be over before Constance arrived home. She had a withering way of saying that make-up looked cheap on young girls so that Allison, listening to her, would feel the shine of pleasure rub off her lovely Saturday afternoon, and would be depressed for the rest of the evening.

Selena always stayed to supper on Saturdays, when Constance usually made something simple, like waffles or scrambled eggs with little sausages. To Selena, these were foods of unheard of luxury, just as everything about the MacKenzie house seemed luxurious—and beautiful, something to dream about. She loved the combination of rock maple and flowered chintz in the MacKenzie living room, and she often wondered, sometimes angrily, what in the world ailed Allison that she could be unhappy in surroundings like these, with a wonderful blonde mother, and a pink and white bedroom of her own.

This was the way the two friends had always spent their Saturday afternoons, but today some restlessness, some urge to contrariness, made Allison hesitant to answer Selena's, “What'll we do today?” with the stock answer.

Allison said, “Oh, I don't know. Let's just walk.”

“Where to?” demanded Selena practically. “Can't just walk and walk and not go anywhere. Let's go down to your mother's store.”

Selena loved to go to the Thrifty Corner. Sometimes Constance allowed her to look at the dresses which hung, shimmering gorgeously, from padded white hangers.

“No,” said Allison decisively, wanting to go anywhere but to her mother's store. “You always want to do the same old thing. Let's go somewhere else.”

“Well,
where,
then?” asked Selena petulantly.

“I know a place,” said Allison quickly. “I know the most wonderful place in the world to go. It's a secret place, though, so you mustn't ever tell anyone that I took you there. Promise?”

Selena laughed. “Where's this?” she asked. “Are you going to take me up to Samuel Peyton's castle?”

“Oh,
no!
I'd
never
go up there. I'd be scared. Wouldn't you?”

“No,” said Selena flatly, “I wouldn't. Dead folks can't hurt you none. It's the ones that are alive, you have to watch out for.”

“Well, anyway, it's not the castle I'm talking about. Come on. I'll show you.”

“All right,” said Selena. “But if it's somewhere silly, I'll turn right around and go downtown. I've got a dollar and a quarter from doing Mrs. Partridge's ironing, and the new
Photoplays
and
Silver Screens
are in down at Prescott's.”

“Oh, come on,” said Allison impatiently.

Arm in arm, the two girls walked, Allison leading the way through town and into Memorial Park. She felt excited, the way she often did just before Christmas, when she had a special gift to give to someone, and she felt, too, the particular happiness that comes from sharing something precious with a dear friend.

“Here comes Ted Carter,” said Allison in a whisper, although the boy was at the opposite end of the park walk and could not possibly have heard her. “Pretend you don't see him.”

“Why?” asked Selena aloud. “Ted's a good kid. Why should I make out not to see him?”

“He's
after
you, that's why,” hissed Allison.

“You're nuts.”

“I am not. You don't want anything to do with Ted Carter, Selena. He comes from a
terrible
family. I heard my mother talking to Mrs. Page once, about Ted's mother and father. Mrs. Page said that Mrs. Carter is no better than a
hoor!”

“D'you mean whore?” asked Selena.

“Sh-h,” Allison whispered. “He'll hear you. I don't know what Mrs. Page meant, but Mother's face got all red when she heard it, so it must be something terrible, like a thief, or a murderer!”

“Well, maybe it is, in a way,” drawled Selena and burst out laughing. “Hi, Ted,” she said to the boy who was now almost abreast of the two girls. “What're you doing here?”

“Same thing you are,” said Ted and grinned. “Just walking.”

“Well, then, walk with us,” said Selena, ignoring Allison's elbow in her ribs.

“I can't,” said Ted. “I gotta get back and get groceries for my mother.”

“Well, if you can't, you can't,” said Selena.

“Come
on,”
said Allison.

“‘Bye, Ted,” said Selena.

‘“Bye,” said Ted. “‘Bye, Allison.”

The girls walked on through the park and Ted continued on his way toward town. When he reached the end of the walk where it emerged into the street, Ted turned to look back.

“Hey, Selena,” he yelled.

The girls turned to look at him and Ted waved his hand.

“I'll be seeing you, Selena,” called Ted.

“Sure!” Selena called back, and waved.

Ted turned out of the park into the street and was out of sight.

“See!
” said Allison furiously. “You
see!
I told you so. He's
after
you.”

Selena stopped walking to look at her friend. She looked at her long and hard.

“So what?” she asked finally.

The afternoon was not a success. For the first time during their long friendship, the two girls did not see eye to eye.

What's wrong, wondered Allison, not able to understand a person who remained unmoved by the beauty of the land.

I wonder what ails her, thought Selena, unable to imagine anyone for whom “going downtown” was not a thrilling experience, gaining in new joys with every trip. But then, Allison had a lot of queer ideas, thought Selena. Like when she wanted to be all by herself, or when she got to mooning over her dead father.

After all, Selena reasoned, her own father was just as dead as Allison's father, but no one ever caught her mooning around over some dumb picture the way Allison did. Selena had no idea at all of how her father had looked. He had been killed in a lumbering accident two months before she was born and Nellie had had no framed photographs to show her daughter. Lucas Cross was the only father Selena knew. He had been a widower with one son by a wife who had died in childbirth, and he had married Nellie when Selena was six weeks old. Paul was not Selena's own brother any more than Joey was but, thought Selena, she didn't bother to think of that much. If Allison were in my shoes, mused Selena, I bet she'd always be talking about half brothers and stepfathers and that kind of stuff. I wonder what ails her all the time.

Allison wondered incredulously if Selena could possibly be approaching the stage which Constance described as “being boy crazy.” She was certainly in an awful hurry to get downtown. Maybe she hoped that she'd see Ted Carter in one of the stores. Allison frowned at this thought, as she began to climb the long, sloping hill behind the park, Selena at her heels.

Selena did not like one single feature of Road's End and said so in no uncertain terms when she and Allison had reached the top of the hill.

“It's just an old drop-off,” said Selena when Allison pointed out the wooden board with the lettering on its side. “Why shouldn't there be a sign there. People might get killed if there wasn't.”

Allison was ready to cry. She felt as if she had been unjustly slapped in the face. It was like giving someone a mink coat, or a diamond bracelet, or something just as special as that, and having the person say, “Oh, I have more of those than I can use.”

“They're just woods,” commented Selena a few minutes later, and flatly refused to walk through them with Allison. “What do I want to walk in any old woods for? There's plenty of woods right around our shack. I get a bellyful of woods every day in the week.”

“You're mean, Selena,” cried Allison. “You're just plain mean and hateful! This is a special, secret place. No one ever comes here but me, and I brought you up because I thought you were my special friend.”

“Oh, don't be such a baby,” said Selena crossly. “And what do you mean, no one comes here but you? Boys have been bringing girls up here ever since I can remember, at night, in cars.”

“You're a liar!” shouted Allison.

“I am not,” said Selena indignantly. “Ask anybody. They'll tell you.”

“Well, it's just not true,” said Allison. “What would anyone want to come up here at night for? You can't walk in the woods at night.”

Selena shrugged. “Forget it, kid,” she said, not unkindly. “Don't be mad at me. Come on, let's go downtown.”

“That makes the hundredth time you've said that,” said Allison angrily. “All
right.
We'll go downtown.”

Constance MacKenzie did not wholly approve of Allison's friendship with the stepdaughter of Lucas Cross. Once or twice she had tried, halfheartedly, to put a stop to it, but after a few days of returning home from work to find Allison in tears, vowing that she was totally friendless now that Selena was being kept from her, Constance had relented. She had never been able to answer Allison's questions about Selena satisfactorily.

“I never said that I didn't like Selena,” she would tell Allison defensively. “It's just—” and here she would always stop to search for just the right words.

“Just what, Mother?” Allison would prompt her.

Constance would have to shrug, unable to put her finger on what it was in Selena that disturbed her.

“With all the
nice
children in this town,” she had said once, but was stopped by Allison's look, and her question.

“Why don't you think Selena is nice?”

“I didn't say that,” said Constance, and then she had hunched her shoulders helplessly. “Never mind.”

So the friendship between Allison and Selena had continued, full and satisfying, until this Saturday afternoon when each girl had wanted a different something, and neither had been able to understand the other's need.

Together, they walked up one side of Elm Street and down the other, looking into the shop windows, but unable to play the game that had always amused them.