Read Online Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Maureen Daly
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before us in the moonlight, smoothness and shadow. From this distance a sand trap looked like a big open scar on the smooth face of the green and the moon gave a weird yellow half-light that made the whole night a two-tone picture of highlights and hollows. Behind us tall old elm trees on the edge of the course stretched their black leaf-lace high against the sky.Jack took a handkerchief out of his coat and the dubonnet dress handkerchief from his breast pocket, spreading them together on the grass for me to sit on. I have never known anything so lovely as that night.
At first neither of us spoke but sat feeling the softness of the breeze and watching the fireflies winking in the grass, while from the clubhouse music floated out to us, muted by the almost tangible stillness of the night. Jack lit a cigarette and in the match glow I saw his face, so young and clean, and the sheer joy of just being with him made me shiver a little. He smoked in silence for a time and then, turning to me, said unexpectedly, almost as if he relished the words, “Everyone I introduced you to tonight liked you, Angie. A couple of the fellows are mad that they didn’t find you first.” I didn’t say anything but sat looking at the moon—by squinting my eyes I could make it shoot out into long yellow jags of light.
“Swede told me he saw you out looking at the boat the other day,” he went on. I still made no comment. He was puffing out the smoke from his cigarette thoughtfully, watching it in the air as it floated into nothingness. All around us the crickets were keeping up a steady cheep-cheep, so constant that after a while it was no sound at all, just a rhythm keeping time to the faster beating of my heart. Then without looking at me, without turning his head, Jack asked, “Why, Angie?” The night was so quiet that the words seemed to stand still in midair, echoing over and over softly till at last they faded away. Why? I could hear mythoughts brushing past each other in my head, none of them coherent enough to be spoken. There were no words for an answer. I felt Jack’s hand on mine as it lay on the grass, his fingers warm and hesitant. He flipped his cigarette away and together we watched the stub glowing until it burned itself out in the grass.
Really I don’t know how it happened. If I could tell you I would. Maybe I shouldn’t even mention it, seeing it was only the third time I had been out with him. But I knew it was going to happen, and I wanted it to.
It was wonderfully strange knowing even before he moved, even before he put his arm around me, that he would. It gave me a new sense of power to think that from the very beginning of the evening—at least, from the first dance—I knew this would happen.
Then suddenly, and yet it wasn’t sudden at all, I remember myself with both hands pressed against the gabardine of his coat so hard that I could feel the roughness of the cloth. My head seemed to be throbbing wildly and still I was thinking very clearly and precisely. Behind him I could see the high stars and the golf course stretched out silver-green in the moonlight and the fireflies flickering in the grass like bits of neon lighting. I felt a new, breathless caution as if I were sitting in a bubble. And then, I, Angie Morrow, who had never done anything like this before, who until last Monday night had never even had a real date, could feel his cheek on mine,as warm and soft as peach fuzz. And I knew if I moved my face just a little, just a very little….
In the movies they always shut their eyes but I didn’t. I didn’t think of anything like that, though I do remember a quick thought passing through my mind again about how much he smelled like Ivory soap when his face was so close to mine. In the loveliness of the next moment I think I grew up. I remember that behind him was the thin, yellow arc of moon, turned over on its back, and I remember feeling my hands slowly relax on the rough lapels of his coat. Sitting
At first neither of us spoke but sat feeling the softness of the breeze and watching the fireflies winking in the grass, while from the clubhouse music floated out to us, muted by the almost tangible stillness of the night. Jack lit a cigarette and in the match glow I saw his face, so young and clean, and the sheer joy of just being with him made me shiver a little. He smoked in silence for a time and then, turning to me, said unexpectedly, almost as if he relished the words, “Everyone I introduced you to tonight liked you, Angie. A couple of the fellows are mad that they didn’t find you first.” I didn’t say anything but sat looking at the moon—by squinting my eyes I could make it shoot out into long yellow jags of light.
“Swede told me he saw you out looking at the boat the other day,” he went on. I still made no comment. He was puffing out the smoke from his cigarette thoughtfully, watching it in the air as it floated into nothingness. All around us the crickets were keeping up a steady cheep-cheep, so constant that after a while it was no sound at all, just a rhythm keeping time to the faster beating of my heart. Then without looking at me, without turning his head, Jack asked, “Why, Angie?” The night was so quiet that the words seemed to stand still in midair, echoing over and over softly till at last they faded away. Why? I could hear mythoughts brushing past each other in my head, none of them coherent enough to be spoken. There were no words for an answer. I felt Jack’s hand on mine as it lay on the grass, his fingers warm and hesitant. He flipped his cigarette away and together we watched the stub glowing until it burned itself out in the grass.
Really I don’t know how it happened. If I could tell you I would. Maybe I shouldn’t even mention it, seeing it was only the third time I had been out with him. But I knew it was going to happen, and I wanted it to.
It was wonderfully strange knowing even before he moved, even before he put his arm around me, that he would. It gave me a new sense of power to think that from the very beginning of the evening—at least, from the first dance—I knew this would happen.
Then suddenly, and yet it wasn’t sudden at all, I remember myself with both hands pressed against the gabardine of his coat so hard that I could feel the roughness of the cloth. My head seemed to be throbbing wildly and still I was thinking very clearly and precisely. Behind him I could see the high stars and the golf course stretched out silver-green in the moonlight and the fireflies flickering in the grass like bits of neon lighting. I felt a new, breathless caution as if I were sitting in a bubble. And then, I, Angie Morrow, who had never done anything like this before, who until last Monday night had never even had a real date, could feel his cheek on mine,as warm and soft as peach fuzz. And I knew if I moved my face just a little, just a very little….
In the movies they always shut their eyes but I didn’t. I didn’t think of anything like that, though I do remember a quick thought passing through my mind again about how much he smelled like Ivory soap when his face was so close to mine. In the loveliness of the next moment I think I grew up. I remember that behind him was the thin, yellow arc of moon, turned over on its back, and I remember feeling my hands slowly relax on the rough lapels of his coat. Sitting
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