The Three Sirens (13 page)

She had her purse and her shoes, and she said, “I’m going to bed, Dad.”

She had put one foot before the other, and started to walk past him, when she seemed to stumble—one knee collapsing like a broken joint under her—and she started to go down, fighting for balance. He was beside her in a stride, catching her in time, and helping her upright. As he did so, her face brushed his, and the smell on her breath was unmistakable.

She tried to go on, murmuring thanks, but he blocked her path. He had kicked indecision out of the room. He knew what was right and he knew what was wrong.

“You’ve been drinking, Mary.”

Beneath the quiet disapproval, Mary’s poise melted away. The transformation was instantaneous. She was no longer twenty-six but sixteen—or maybe six. She tried to brazen it out for only a second, averted her eyes, and stood there, his young child, with her Oedipal guilt. “Yes,” she admitted, almost indistinctly.

“But you’ve never—” he said. “I thought we had an understanding about that. What’s got into you? How many did you have?”

“Two or three, I can’t remember. I’m sorry. I had to.”

“You had to? That’s something new. Who twisted your arm?”

“I can’t explain it, Dad, but I had to do something to be there. You can’t be a squeep, spoil everything. Anyway, I figured it’s better than the other thing—”

Sam felt the constriction in his bony chest. “What other thing?”

“You
know
,” she said, one hand working her purse handle. “They all want you to do it. If you don’t, you don’t belong. Everybody does it.”

“Does it? Does what?” he demanded relentlessly. “Are you referring to sexual intercourse?”

“Yes.”

He could hardly hear her. “And everybody does it?” he persisted.

“Yes. Almost.”

“Almost, you say. You mean some girls don’t.”

“Well, yes, but they won’t be around long.”

“Your friends—this Leona—does she do it?”

“It’s not fair, Dad, I can’t—”

“Then she does,” he said. “And that was the unpleasantness with the Schaffer boy. That’s what he wanted you to do out there?”

Her eyes were downcast. She said nothing. And seeing her thus, this fair and innocent part of him, he had no more stomach for playing stern judge. His heart went out to her, with pity and love, and he wanted only to care for her, protect her, banish all unpleasantness from her pure white kingdom.

He took her by the elbow. His voice was gentle. “Come, Mary, let’s sit down in the kitchen and have some milk—no, better make it tea—let’s have some tea and crackers.” When she was six and eight and ten, and wandering awake with heavy-lidded eyes and tangled curls and rumpled pajamas, carrying a felt pony, he had often brought her to the kitchen to join him in milk and crackers, and tell her a good-night fable, and lead her back to the youth bed.

He went into the kitchen, turned on the light, set the tea kettle on the burner, and got out the crackers. She sat at the dinette table, woozily following his every move. He readied the cups with their tea bags and sugar lumps, and poured the hot water over the bags.

At last, he was seated across from her, watching from over the rim of his cup as she nibbled at a cracker and sipped her tea. They had not exchanged a word since the living room.

“Mary—” he said.

Her eyes met his, and waited.

“—you drank because you wanted to be part of the crowd, to be doing something, since you wouldn’t do the other. Isn’t that so?”

“I suppose,” said Mary.

“But the other is still expected?”

“Yes.”

“So why don’t you leave that crowd, join up with some other kids who have better values?”

“Dad, these are my friends. I grew up with them. You can’t go around shopping for friends every time something annoys you. I like all of them—they’re the best kids—it’s been fun up to now—and still would be—if not for this.”

Sam hesitated a moment, and then he said, “Do your girl friends ever discuss with you what they’re doing?”

“Oh, sure, all the time.”

“Are they—do they feel—well, troubled or guilty? What I mean to say is, are they bothered by this activity or do they find it fun?”

“Fun? Of course not. What can be fun about a dirty thing like that—I mean, a thing like that being forced on you? I think most of the girls don’t care one way or the other. They don’t think it’s fun and they don’t think it’s wrong or worry about it. They think it’s just one of those boring things you put up with to keep the fellows happy.”

“Why is it so important to keep the fellows happy, as you put it?

If this is a bore, unpleasant, why not say no and keep yourself happy?”

“Pa—you don’t understand. It’s one of those things you put up with to make yourself ultimately happier. I mean, then you belong to the group and you can have real fun, all the dates you want, and lots of laughs, and going driving and to movies.”

“But first you pay the admission price.”

“Well, if you want to put it that way. Most of the girls think it’s a pretty low price for all the rest. I mean, as long as your girl friends are doing it, what can be so—?”

“Mary,” he interrupted, “why didn’t you do it tonight? I assume it was proposed?”

“Yes, he tried to—to talk me into it.”

Sam winced. His little trundle-bundle girl in baggy pink pajamas. “But you didn’t go for it. Why?”

“I—I was scared.”

“Of what? Your mother and myself—?”

“Oh no. I mean, that wouldn’t be the main thing. After all, I wouldn’t have had to tell you.” She sipped her tea absently, her shiny brow furrowed. “I can’t say exactly—”

“Were you scared of becoming pregnant? Or maybe catching a venereal disease?”

“Please, Pa. Most of the girls don’t even think of such things. Anyway, I heard the fellows use contraceptives.”

Again, Sam winced. It was as if Gainsborough’s Blue Boy had uttered a four-letter word. He stared with incredulity at his little Blue Girl.

Mary was deep in thought. “I guess I was scared because I’d never done such a thing. It was one of the mysteries. I mean talking and doing are two different things.”

“They certainly are.”

“I think all the girls my age are curious, but I don’t think we want to go all the way. I mean, the idea doesn’t arouse us. I kept thinking, at the party, later in the car, when I kept pulling his hands away, that it would be horrible, it would soil me, I would never be the same again.”

“I’m not sure I understand, Mary.”

“I—I can’t explain.”

“We’ve always been—well, fairly open-minded about sexual matters—sensible—so you can’t be repelled by that part of it.”

“No. It’s something else.”

“Could it be that the coldness of the approach—the sort of barter involved—the sort of saying that if you want to be with them and have friends and kicks, you’ve got to pay rent—?”

“I don’t know, Dad, I really don’t.”

Sam nodded, took her cup and saucer, and his own, and stood up and carried them to the sink. He went back to her slowly. “What’s next, Mary?”

“Next?”

“Are you going to see Neal Schaffer again?”

“Of course, I am!” She came to her feet. “I like him.”

“Despite his busy hands and propositions?”

“I shouldn’t have told you. Somehow you make it sound even nastier. Neal’s no different from the others in the gang. He’s a normal American boy. His family—”

“How do you intend to handle him next time? What if he won’t take no. What if the gang threatens to drop you?”

Mary bit her lower lip. “They won’t, I mean not really. I’ll manage. I’ve always managed up to now. I can find ways to stall him and the others. I think they like me well enough to—” She stopped abruptly.

“Like you enough to what?” Sam demanded. “To wait until you finally give in?”

“No! To respect my wishes. They know I’m not a complete squeep. I don’t mind a kiss now and then and—well, you know, having a little fun.”

“And now they know you’ll drink.”

“Dad, you make it sound like I’m going to become a falling-down alcoholic. I’m not. Tonight was—well, it was an exception—and I won’t disappoint you—”

She had taken up her purse and shoes again, and was starting for the hallway.

“Mary, I just want to say this. Perhaps you’re too old for lectures. And I accept the fact that you are an individual with a mind of your own. But you’re still very young. Things that seem important to you this minute will seem far less important in a few years, when really important things come up for decisions. I can only say this and hope you are impressed. I cannot hold your hand when you go out with your friends. You’re a decent, intelligent girl, and you are respected by everyone, and Mother and I are proud of you. I’d hate you to behave in a way that would disappoint us, and, in the end, take my word, disappoint you in yourself.”

“You take everything too seriously, Dad.” She went to him, on tiptoes kissed his cheek, and smiled up at him. “I feel much better now. You can trust me. Good night.”

After she had gone to bed, Sam Karpowicz lingered in the kitchen, leaning against a cupboard, arms folded across his robe, examining the whole problem of his sixteen-year-old daughter and her fast crowd. He knew that there was no running from her present environment. If he took her to Phoenix or Miami or Memphis or Pittsburgh or Dallas or St. Paul, she would gravitate to the same friends, the same fast crowd with different faces. It was the condition of adolescent society today, not all of it, but much of it, and Sam hated it (accepting some of the blame for its existence) and hated his daughter growing up in it.

He could see the near future, and he could see it plainly. What he dreaded was the crucial summer ahead. In the next few months, the gang would still be absorbed with schoolwork and finals and intramural activities, and they would not see each other so much or have complete leisure on their hands. With summer and the school vacation, that would change. The gang would be on the loose, and Mary with it, daily, nightly. She might, as she intended, fend off the Neal Schaffers the next few months. But summer was the prime time for love. Neal would grow impatient and annoyed with being stopped at her lips, at her bosom, with having his hands removed from under Mary’s skirt. He would insist upon consummation, and if refused, take his arousal and his social offerings elsewhere. Mary would be left out. The mark of the leper would be upon her. Was she strong enough to face this? Sam doubted it, he honestly doubted it. Who, after all, could withstand the threat of ostracism or deliberately embrace loneliness?

And the drinking. Another danger. Then, suddenly, Sam pushed himself from the cupboard, as it came to him why she may have drunk. At first he had thought she had done it to prove that, despite an affection for virginity, she was still a good sport. Now he saw her drinking in another light, with a different motivation. She had wanted to belong. And she had been afraid of intercourse. And so, probably at someone’s suggestion—Leona? Neal?—she had drunk twice to shed her inhibitions and make capitulation possible. Tonight, she had not succeeded in overcoming her fears. But another time, not two drinks but four or five …

Sam felt ill and helpless. He clicked off the kitchen light. He started toward the hall, detoured to turn down the living room lamp. As he did so, he saw Maud Hayden’s letter. In the darkness, he stared at it, and then he started for his bedroom.

Flinging the robe aside, he fell into bed.

“Sam—” It was Estelle whispering.

He turned his head on the pillow. “Aren’t you—?”

“Sam, I heard almost all. I got up and listened.” Her voice was tremulous and worried. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to do our best,” said Sam firmly. “I’m writing Maud Hayden in the morning. I’ll tell her it’s all of us or none of us. If she says yes, we’ll have Mary out of here, on some peaceful small island where she won’t be tempted.”

“That’s this summer, Sam. What’ll we do after that?”

“After that, she’ll be older. I only want her older. So let’s start with first things first. And the first thing is to take care of this summer…

* * *

Maud Hayden raised her eyes from the carbon copy of the letter to Dr. Walter Zegner, in San Francisco, California.

“What was that, Claire? Why am I inviting a physician on this trip? Well, now—” She hesitated, then said solemnly, “I’d like to tell you it is because Dr. Zegner specializes in geriatrics, and I’ve enjoyed my long correspondence with him, and the Sirens might be a valuable laboratory for his work.”

She paused once more, and permitted her face to break into a smile. “I’d like to tell you all that, but this is strictly family and four walls, so I won’t. I’ve invited a physician, my dear, because of politics, pure politics. I know Cyrus Hackfeld’s mind and his business. He owns a great chain of cut-rate drugstores, and is a major shareholder in the pharmaceutical house that supplies those drugstores. Hackfeld is always interested in any simple medication or herb that primitive tribes use—some exotic nonsense that might be converted into a harmless stimulant or wrinkle cream or appetite killer. So whenever any scientists apply for grants, he is inclined to inquire whether a medical person is going along. I anticipated this would come up again.”

“What about Dr. Rachel DeJong?” Claire wanted to know. “She’s a graduate M.D. as well as an analyst, isn’t she? Wouldn’t she satisfy Hackfeld?”

“I thought of that, too, Claire, and then I vetoed it,” said Maud. “I decided Rachel might be rusty in the M.D. department, and overworked taking on two jobs, and in the end, Hackfeld might feel shortchanged. So that’s why I took no chances with our sponsor. There’s simply got to be a full-time medical person along, and if that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it is, and I can only hope the person is Walter Zegner.”

* * *

It was twenty minutes to eight in the evening, and Walter Zegner had said that he would be by for her at eight o’clock. In the ten weeks that she had known him, and the nine weeks and six days since she had known him intimately, Harriet Bleaska had never once been kept waiting by Walter Zegner. In fact, on three occasions that she could remember—and even now the remembrance brought a smile to her lips—he had arrived fifteen minutes to a half-hour early, motivated by what he explained to be “an uncontrollable desire.”