Boys and Girls Together Read Free Page B

sport that was always there to be had between them.
    She gave him the limpid look that always meant the same thing, that always meant all you got to do is tell me what to do and I’ll do it, just tell me and it will be done, and then when she knew the man had got the message she lifted her head in an imitation of aloofness and went off for her drink while the singing went right on. When she didn’t come back after she had had time enough to fix two drinks he knew what she was up to, so he went after her while the barber and his wife asked one another what else to sing. And there she was as he knew she’d be, her back to him but knowing he’d be there in a moment, the empty glass before her and everything ready to be mixed but nothing mixed. He went to her and took her in his arms and held her very tight, then moved his hands all over, slowly and softly. She lowered the zipper so he’dnot have cloth in the way, but he lifted it and said, ‘Don’t be rude to your guests.’ And then very loudly so that they’d hear him he said, ‘Never mind sneaking an extra drink in here, Daisy. Get right back where you belong.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ Ellen said, ‘we’ve only had three each, and Charley’s drooling already.’
    â€˜And you know what I’m drooling
for
, too,’ Charley said.
    The man fixed his wife a big one and twisted her head around and held his open mouth to hers after she’d had a sip and the tongue jumped up and tried to take up all the space, but he turned her around and they went back into the living-room together to find the barber and his wife kissing.
    â€˜Well,’ the barber said, getting up, ‘we’ll be going home now, if you know what I mean.’
    â€˜Ah, sit down,’ Ellen said.
    â€˜O.K., you asked for it,’ the barber said to his wife, ‘but you know damn well one more drink and when I hit the bed it will be dreamland for me and nothing else.’
    â€˜Won’t be the first time,’ Ellen said as if she were saying the right thing.
    â€˜You’re darn tootin’ it won’t,’ the barber said proudly. ‘Well, Daisy, I guess you know you look like something bad little boys dream about. I guess you know that. Am I right, Dick?’
    â€˜Any woman can do it if you’ll give her a tub andsome hot water to bathe in and enough time to believe she’s got it, and a few kind words.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ the barber said, ‘that’s all they really need, a little soap and a few kind words. I get a kick out of the way I can always get the little woman to think she’s got anything Betty Grable ever had and a few little things she ain’t got.’
    â€˜It happens,’ Ellen said, ‘I happen to admire Betty Grable and have no delusions about myself. I happen to know I’m younger than Miss Grable and I also happen to know I went further in school than she did.’
    â€˜What else do you happen to know?’ the barber said. ‘She knows a few other things, too. I think it has to do with the kind of people she comes from.’
    â€˜My family wasn’t rich,’ Ellen said, ‘but they kept out of jail.’
    â€˜They were pretty religious, too, weren’t they?’ Charley said. ‘Hell, tell Dick and Daisy how religious they were.’
    â€˜They went to church every Sunday,’ Ellen said, ‘and I happen to think it did them no harm.’
    â€˜No, no,’ Charley said. ‘Tell them how they were in the Presbyterian Church for maybe thirty or forty years.’
    â€˜Maybe more,’ Ellen said. ‘Anyhow, they were always good Presbyterians.’
    â€˜What she’s trying to say,’ Charley said, ‘is that they were better than my people, who were Lutherans.’
    â€˜No,’ Ellen said earnestly, ‘that’s not what I’m tryingto say at all. It happens that I happen to think rather highly