Jean and Johnny Page 8

  “At quarter of ten in the morning?” Sue did not sound entirely approving.

  “Sure. Why not?” Jean snatched her sweater and jerked a comb through her bangs.

  “Have fun,” said Sue.

  “I shall,” answered Jean, almost defiantly. It was too bad there were not two Johnnys, one for each of them, but that was the way things were. They couldn’t all be lucky.

  Jean and Johnny walked down the steps to the Volkswagen in the driveway. “I’ve always wanted to ride in one of these little cars,” Jean told Johnny, as he held the door open for her.

  “This is Mom’s car,” he said. “She keeps it for a pet.” Johnny folded his long legs into the small car and backed it down the driveway. “It doesn’t really have a motor. It’s powered by a gnome turning an eggbeater. It’s much cheaper than gas.”

  “And here I thought that noise coming from the back of the car instead of the front was the engine,” said Jean, “and all the time it was an eggbeater. What do you feed the gnome? A saucer of milk, or is that just for brownies?”

  “This gnome likes Cokes and French fries,” answered Johnny.

  Jean basked in being alone with Johnny, but when he drove into the parking area of the drive-in and brought the car to a halt between two white lines, Jean felt as if she had run out of conversation. Too shy to look at Johnny, she read the signs posted on the front of the drive-in. Jumbo-burgers—¼ lb. beef on bun 37¢. French fries 14¢. Porkchopettes 79¢.

  “Two Cokes,” Johnny yelled out the window to the carhop who was approaching. She smiled, nodded, and turned back. Johnny glanced at his watch. “We’re just in time,” he remarked, and turned on the radio.

  “Time for what?” asked Jean.

  “Hi-times,” he said. “Don’t you listen?”

  “Every Saturday,” answered Jean, embarrassed that the actual presence of Johnny had made her forget the program.

  The theme song and then Johnny’s voice came out of the loudspeaker. “Good morning. This is Johnny Chessler, your Hi-times announcer, broadcasting by tape recording from the control room of Northgate High School.” Johnny listened intently.

  Jean listened too, relieved of the burden of conversation. Now she had a chance to think about what she wanted to say to Johnny when the program ended. She wanted to talk to him, to find out more about him, and most of all to learn the answer to the question that had fascinated her since December. Why had he asked her to dance with him? This was her opportunity if she could only manipulate the conversation. It was too bad she couldn’t have a scriptwriter, like the Hi-times program.

  When the carhop set the tray on the car door beside Johnny, Jean accepted a Coke from Johnny and silently sipped it through the straw. There really was no reason why she couldn’t come right out and ask Johnny about that evening at the clubhouse.

  “Now that the cast of the variety show has been chosen and rehearsals will start next week,” said Johnny’s voice, “committees have been appointed to start the ball rolling on another event on the social calendar of Northgate High School—the Girls’ Association Dance, which will be held on the eleventh of April, in the gymnasium. Hawaiian Holiday is the theme, and this time the girls invite the boys. Smile for the ladies, boys, and maybe you will be lucky enough to get an invitation.” Johnny listened to every word.

  And probably half the girls in school will ask Johnny to go to that dance, thought Jean unhappily. There was no use even thinking about it herself—she knew she would never have the courage. She stirred the ice in her Coke with her straw and told herself, I’ll just say casually, Johnny, do you remember that night at the clubhouse when you asked me to dance? And he will say, Yes, Jean, what about it? And I’ll say, How did you happen to ask me to dance when I was so obviously not a part of the crowd? Or maybe she shouldn’t ask. Maybe it would be better not to recall the episode at all.

  Jean sipped her Coke slowly, trying to make it last, while she listened to Johnny’s voice on the radio and stole glances at Johnny himself, absorbed in his own words. He had such a regular profile and was so attractive with his curls tumbling over his forehead that way. And it was pleasant to hear Johnny’s voice coming out of the loudspeaker instead of Johnny, because she was spared the anxiety of conversation, of wondering if she had said the right thing, of weighing the meaning of Johnny’s words. Yes, this was a pleasant moment, sitting in a car in the drive-in sipping a Coke as if she came to this popular spot every day. She could not help marveling that the words she was hearing had been spoken by Johnny on Thursday, recorded on tape, preserved for two days, and were now being played from a radio station. Gradually she, too, became engrossed in the sound of Johnny’s voice. As the words flowed by, Jean ceased to listen to their meaning and listened only to the stream of pleasant sound. Then his voice stopped to allow the playing of a record.

  “Oh, Johnny!” exclaimed Jean, turning toward him. “You sound marvelous!”

  “You really think so?” Obviously Johnny was pleased by her admiration.

  “Oh, yes,” said Jean. “With your voice you should be an announcer or an actor.”

  “I do the best I can with the scripts the literary club writes.” Johnny frowned slightly. “The trouble is, they don’t realize some of the problems of radio broadcasting, so I’ve got to learn to be more careful with my enunciation in phrases like ‘Girls’ Association.’ Those s’s made too much of a hissing sound,” he said critically.

  “Nobody would ever notice,” said Jean.

  The record ended. Johnny interviewed the drama coach, who said he thought this variety show was going to be one of the best Northgate High had ever staged. When the program was over, Johnny turned to Jean. “Like it?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Jean. “You were every bit as good as a professional announcer and better than lots of them.”

  Johnny grinned. “Did I ever tell you you are cute?”

  Johnny’s voice issuing from Johnny’s mouth was much more satisfactory after all, even though Jean did not know how to answer. If she said yes it would sound as if she treasured his casual remarks—which she did, but was not going to let him know it. And if she said no, it would sound as if she was seeking compliments—which she longed to do. Instead of answering, she looked down at her Coke and smiled.

  “Did you know you have dimples when you smile like that?” asked Johnny.

  “Have I?” Jean decided this was a good moment to risk asking the question. “Is that why you asked me to dance that night at the Christmas party?”

  Johnny laughed. “Partly, I guess. You looked so cute and eager, sitting there watching.”

  Jean stored this away to mull over at her leisure. “I thought I looked terrible in my saddle shoes and that awful plaid skirt,” she said, laughing lightly. “I had been helping with some decorations for a party the next day, so I wasn’t dressed up.” She handed Johnny her empty Coke glass to set on the tray. Johnny did not need to know that it was Elaine’s mother’s party and not her own.

  Johnny looked searchingly at Jean as if he were memorizing her features. Jean was both flattered and flustered. “I know I must have been terrible to dance with.” She forced a gay laugh. “But I have improved a lot since then. I have had some practice.” It certainly would not hurt to let him know that she had learned to dance since that night. Never mind how she had learned. A girl did not have to tell a boy everything.

  The carhop removed the tray from the car door, depriving them of the right to occupy one of the drive-in’s parking spaces, even though the lot was almost empty at that hour in the morning. When Johnny started the car and headed toward her house, Jean was disappointed, because she had hoped they might drive around for a while. She considered saying it was such a beautiful spring day that it must be possible to see for miles from the hills, but rejected the remark as being too obvious. When Johnny let her out of the car and walked her to the front door, she asked, “Won’t you come in?”

  “No, thanks. Not this time,” he said, smili
ng down at her. “I have to be getting home. Mom needs the car.”

  This time! That meant there would be a next time. “Well—thanks for the Coke.” Jean was reluctant to let Johnny go. “And it was fun listening to the program.”

  Johnny smiled at Jean as if he were amused in an affectionate sort of way. “See you around,” he said, and was gone.

  Jean closed the door and watched from the window while Johnny backed down the driveway. She had had a date with Johnny! And she had found out what she wanted to know. It was true that she was a little disappointed that he had brought her home so soon and had not asked her for another date, but…Oh, well, there was always next week. Humming Play Like You Love Me, she walked into the bedroom.

  “Back so soon?” asked Sue, as she silenced the roar of the sewing machine.

  “Johnny had to take the car back. His mother needed it,” Jean explained, as she dropped her sweater on the foot of the bed.

  “Oh.” The sewing machine began to race down the length of a seam again.

  Jean stood in front of the mirror that hung over the chest of drawers she shared with Sue and looked thoughtfully at herself. She looked down, smiled demurely the way she had smiled for Johnny in the car, and tried to peek out from beneath her lashes to see how she had looked to Johnny.

  “What are you looking like that for?” asked Sue curiously.

  Jean had not noticed that the sewing machine had stopped once more. “Was I looking any special way?” she asked innocently, as she turned from the mirror. It was unfortunate that a girl could not have one shred of privacy in her own home. She sat down, picked up a stole, started to baste, discovered she was basting a long facing to a short stole, and put her work down again. She felt too restless to settle down to sewing.

  “There,” said Sue, folding a finished stole and glancing at the clock on the table between the two beds. “I think I’ll stop for now. I have to go downtown.”

  “What for?” asked Jean, knowing Sue did not spend carfare unnecessarily.

  “I need some more material from the main library for my term paper,” explained Sue. “I just received a reserve card saying the book I tried to get last week is in now.”

  When Jean had the house to herself she felt an unaccustomed freedom. She seized an armful of red and turquoise material and threw it into the air just for the joy of watching it fall in a brilliant heap upon her bed. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, she thought. She brushed and combed her hair as meticulously as if she expected Johnny to ring the doorbell at any moment. She wandered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to see what she could find for her lunch. It was early for lunch, but she could not think of anything else to do. She stared dreamily at the covered dishes of leftovers, the cartons of milk, a tomato-juice can half full of bacon fat, and wished they all would turn into avocados, artichokes, and delicious little tea-party sandwiches. They did not, so she poured herself a glass of milk and made a peanut-butter sandwich. She was scarcely aware of what she was eating.

  When Jean finished her lunch she could not think of anything she wanted to do. She reread the headlines of the morning paper, but wars and labor unions and bills before Congress were too remote from her springtime mood. She turned on the television set and got an exercise program that happened to be on. “Come on, girls, let’s get up off those chairs and firm our thighs,” directed a muscular young man. “Right hand on hip, swing your left leg out to the side. One, two. One, two. That’s right. One, two. One, two.” Jean halfheartedly slimmed her thighs for a few measures of organ music before she turned the set off again.

  Feeling that Sue was lucky to have an excuse for going downtown to the library, Jean was seized by a desire to leave the house, to be out in the sunshine. Maybe she didn’t have any reason to go to the library downtown, but she could walk to the branch library to do some reference work for her history class. Jean picked up her notebook and, followed by Dandy, left the house, but even as she tried the door to make sure it was locked she knew that she would not do any work when she reached the library. The walk was pleasant, however, for her thoughts were filled with Johnny.

  At the library Jean did pause beside the encyclopedias long enough to think how much she did not want to open one of those heavy volumes today. She wandered into the periodical section and thumbed through the fashion magazines. How wonderful it must be to be as tall as a fashion model and to wear, even for a little while, such lovely clothes: evening gowns, slim suits, hats like flower gardens. None of these was meant for her, but in the back of one of the magazines, in a section called “Important Clothes for Little Money,” Jean found a photograph of a saucy-looking model wearing a dress she longed to own. The full skirt was gathered onto a simple waist that had a little round collar and buttons down the front. The fabric was pink, printed with clover blossoms in a deeper shade, and there must have been five yards in the skirt alone. The price was forty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents. And they call that little money, thought Jean. To her, forty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents seemed like a fortune. It was—let’s see—forty a cappella choir stoles.

  Then, because Jean did not really want to be in the library at all, she returned the magazine to the rack and, mentally wearing the clover dress, she started homeward, followed by Dandy, who had napped on the library steps. What she really wanted more than anything was to talk to Johnny again; and as she walked, her imaginary skirt silken against her legs, she looked up at the trees, which had shed their blossoms and were now putting forth sweet green foliage, and thought, Why not? She would have the house to herself. All she had to do was make up an excuse to telephone him. Why shouldn’t she hear his voice once? Maybe if she talked to him, he would ask to come over. It took Jean only a moment to hit upon an excuse for telephoning Johnny. She would hear his voice in person, over the telephone, and on the radio—all in one day! She lived in a wonderful age indeed.

  As soon as Jean unlocked the front door, she dropped her notebook on a table and went straight to the telephone. She did not need to look up Johnny’s telephone number. She knew it as well as she knew the license number of his father’s car. With a trembly finger she dialed Toyon 1-4343 and waited, with her heart thumping, for Johnny to answer.

  After the second ring a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”

  Jean had been so preoccupied with Johnny that she was unprepared for this woman’s voice.

  “Hello?” the woman repeated impatiently. In the background Jean heard Johnny call, “Hey, Mom!”

  Silently Jean replaced the receiver. She could not bring herself to ask for Johnny. Then, annoyed with herself, she sat biting at her thumb and wondering why she had been so foolish. There was no reason why she should not ask to speak to Johnny. No reason at all. Now that she knew he was home she would try again after a decent interval—say about five minutes—and if his mother answered a second time, she would calmly ask if she might speak to Johnny.

  In exactly five minutes or three hundred seconds by the clock, Jean dialed again. In Johnny’s house the telephone rang and rang and rang again. Jean tried to picture how it looked, in the kitchen or on a table in the hall, calling angrily for someone to come and lift the receiver. Or perhaps in such a large house there were two telephones, both of them demanding to be answered. Five rings. Six rings. The receiver was lifted! Jean thought her heart would stop.

  “Hello?” It was the woman’s impatient voice again.

  “May I please speak to Johnny?” asked Jean.

  “Just a moment.” Mrs. Chessler, if that was who she was, spoke crisply.

  “Hello?” Johnny’s voice at last.

  “Oh—hello, Johnny. This is Jean.” Somehow Jean got the words out, even though she did not seem to have the breath with which to speak them.

  “Oh, hi, Jean.” Johnny sounded casual, friendly, and not at all surprised to hear her voice.

  “Johnny, I was wondering—” began Jean. “I was wondering—if I left my sweater in your car. I mean—I thought I took it with me a
nd now I can’t find it anyplace. I’ve looked everywhere, and well, it just occurred to me I might have put it over the back of the seat and it could have fallen back onto the floor.”

  “Hold on a minute, Jean,” said Johnny, “and I’ll go out to the garage and have a look.”

  “All right, Johnny,” Jean waited, feeling the beat of her own heart. Had there been a note, a grace note, of amusement in Johnny’s voice?

  “Hello, Jean.” Johnny was on the line again. “Sorry. It isn’t there, and Mom says she didn’t see it when she took the car out a little while ago.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Jean. “I wonder what I could have done with it. I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” answered Johnny.

  Was that impatience in his voice, too? Jean could hear the sound of a faucet running and the rattle of pans, telling her that Johnny’s telephone was in the kitchen. Jean waited a moment for Johnny to say something—any little remark that could prolong the conversation—but she heard only the rush of water.

  “Well, thanks a lot, Johnny,” Jean was forced to say when the silence had stretched to an awkward length. “Sorry I had to bother you.”

  “That’s all right, Jean,” said Johnny.

  “Good-bye, Johnny.”

  “Good-bye.”

  As Jean sat for a moment with her hand on the telephone she clung to that last word, letting it ring through her mind so she could examine every inflection, every nuance, in those two syllables. Impatience was there, she was quite certain, but naturally a boy would not want to have a long conversation with a girl when his mother was in the same room. Although Jean tried to persuade herself that this was true, she knew with a terrible certainty that she had made a mistake. She had not fooled Johnny one bit and, what was worse, she had not been able to keep wistfulness out of her voice. Johnny sounded perfectly friendly, and she could have lost her sweater, couldn’t she? Yes, but she had not. In her heart Jean knew that Johnny had seen through her maneuver.