Chapter 12
Ida Reneson finished drinking the coffee and smacked her lips at the nectar taste which all her food had lately. She wondered if that was because she wanted things to be perfect, ideal, as her romance with Maurie was ideal.
A record player at the department store next door sent loud rock-and-roll music into the street. Ida eased past the cash register in Bill's luncheonette. She moved out to the sidewalk, wishing life could have no end, plotting her future with an intelligence far beyond her years.
She would be a wife and perhaps raise children as well as doing social work so her degree from Milltown U. would have significance. Maurie would be the husband.
Automobile horns honked on the avenue as she strolled northward. She thought of the various boys with whom she had engaged in petting parties-often to the point of physical detonation on her part. They had done their utmost to enter her body. But she held out, declining both orgiastic sex and the menace of a potential shotgun wedding.
Ida knew when a fellow sought to marry money rather than the girl and her love. She had scant respect, also, for the perpetual bachelors who gravitated toward her. They were immature and considered the earth a playground, when to her it was a challenge met by love or career-or both.
When she arrived at the entrance of the parking lot, she saw Maurie's wife rushing across the tar pavement. Ida paused and waited. Blinking hard, she reassured herself that it was Ellen Hayko, whom Ida had met twice so far.
No smile of greeting showed on Ellen's face as she spoke. "If you only knew how long I've waited for this moment."
"I beg your pardon."
"The chat we had at the college didn't sink in very well, did it? You're insistent on playing Delilah."
"Mrs. Hayko, I wish you'd explain some of those profound truths you toss off. Delilah. Maybe we're talking about a stage drama or-"
"Very humorous. I mean you and the cap you've set for Maurie."
A policeman's whistle shrilled in the late afternoon sunshine. Ida felt her nerves twitch; she gave the cop on the corner a dirty look and then returned her attention to Ellen. The wronged spouse had a nice shape, at that. She'd use every curve of it to hold Maurie and save her own honor.
Ida cleared her throat nervously. "You're having pipe dreams again. There are plenty of eligible kids around, so I don't need to steal-"
"We covered this line the last time."
"So what's your problem? Go on and do the talking, since you're so eager to interrupt anything I say."
"Such a sense of etiquette and fair trade, dear Ida. You have old-time ideas. If your character depends on ethics from the Flapper age, it makes for a contradiction." Ellen shifted on her high-heeled shoes and folded her arms. She seemed ready to get violent at the slightest provocation-even though they were standing in a busy downtown area. "Let's take sex. The lack of guilt or remorse that you show indicates a very modern morality, if any such word exists for you."
"The pot is calling the kettle black."
"My faithfulness overshadows you by so much."
"Stop breaking my heart. I heard about you and DiCauslow at the party ... and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he made the scene with you since then."
Ellen squinted furiously at her rival. "More lies. You'd do anything to get Maurice."
"We're going around in circles without any sense to it. I heard what you said and I hereby yawn again. As long as you can hold him, there should be no worry or concern about my presence. Unless there's a law suit on your mind already."
"Alienating affection. You stole the words right out of my mouth, child."
"See you in the comic pages." Ida headed toward her Rolls Royce in the lot and felt superior as she noted the jealous envy in Ellen's eyes. Wealth could be an impossible foe to conquer. Not that Maurie cared whether his coed mistress was rich or poor, she thought contentedly.
The wrath in Ellen's shouting voice was very plain. "Be thankful I haven't scratched your eyes out! Maybe I will!"
"And give me the chance for a counter suit of slander or libel?"
Ida was angry herself now, but the sensation cooled off as she drove away. Back at the dorm she quickly forgot the irritation of being threatened again. They were two ladies locked in mortal combat-every girl to her own abilities. This encounter had served to impress Ida more deeply with the knowledge that she loved Maurie very seriously.
Her class schedule for the day was brief, as usual on a Tuesday, and after Calculus she went for a ride. The ghettos were pathetic around her as she cut through the city, bypassing congested brick buildings where a thousand people lived on top of one another.
She stopped at an open-air phone booth to call Sue. Ida dialed operator, gave the number, and inserted the proper change while she waited for the contact to be made. In her mind she envisioned Reneson Stables-the sprawling acres of meadow-land where horses from mustang to colt were raised. Sue might have lost out on higher education, but she had started an empire with dad's cash and her own native shrewdness.
"Hi, sis!" beamed Ida's voice into the phone. "I thought I'd call and see how the greatest equine show on earth is doing."
"My piebald ponies will be delighted to hear that you were asking for them."
"Silly."
"It's about time you broke down," her sister's hard words sounded out, nasally, as if she spoke through the wrong end of a megaphone. "The business keeps me out here for days."
"Months, I'd say."
"Give me the drift on your marks, your love life and the latest theory about Freud and subconscious sex-in that order."
Ida laughed. "Maybe I'll consolidate them together under one big A-plus. Everything's just fine. How about you and the nasty thyroid gland?"
"The doc says I'll live. I had a chat with your professor pal the other day."
"Sue! You promised-"
"I know. But I couldn't act like a do-nothing and watch you get in trouble with him. So I told him to make sure it's platonic between you."
"Oh, he mentioned that, and we shared a belly laugh on it." She glanced at her watch as Sue continued to ramble on about Maurie. It went into one of Ida's ears and out the other. Finally the coed said, "I really must run now. Appointment at the hairdresser-calculus jamming and so forth."
"Remember how I told you to handle Maurice. As a buddy-"
"And a boy scout. Cross my heart I will."
She hung up and meandered to her dazzling black vehicle at the meter. Sure, there were big differences between her and the prof-but some of these traits balanced off. Opposites did draw a male and female together with magnetic force. Her flighty, moody ways, for instance, were steadied by his mature pattern in selecting recreations.
But the reasons or angles could be left to a head-shrinker for analysis. Ida knew that her love would be all the impetus she would need for success.
Yankee Lane's apartment was quiet when she got there. But the murmur of the stereo told her Yankee had to be around, since he was not absent-minded and would have turned the machine off if he had gone. She knocked at his door.
Heavy boots slid along the floor inside and then he was staring at her from the dimness of his flat, looking ferocious, as dry blood caked on his jaw and throat.
"The wanderin' chick has returned," he growled. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Ida gasped at the bluish welts on his arm. "You have been hurt!"
"I just know it makes your heart bleed. Come in and get outa the draft. I was debatin' how long it'd take before you came to your senses about us."
"No, Yank. The reason I showed up-"
"You heard me!"
He grabbed her wrist and hauled her into the apartment, after which he clanged the door shut behind them. Hunching down in fear, she glanced at Yankee Lane questioningly. She had learned some of his mean qualities in the few weeks they had dated-so long ago. But this raw, animal fury on his face was startlingly new.
"So I suppose you paid me this visit with the idea of a tease," he snorted. "Rile me up and then fly away."
"What happened to your shoulder?"
"Never mind."
"It's-fractrued or something, the way your elbow sticks out. Let me see."
"I said forget it!" He slapped her on the chin with his open palm and she tumbled to her knees on the rug.
Tears filled her eyes as she realized he was aflame with vengeance. Who had done it to him?
She dared not ask. "Yank," she whispered, "I couldn't be stupid enough to tease you."
"Oh yeah?"
"Please leave Maurice Hayko alone! That's why I came here ... to beg you and try to convince you that I love the man. And I think he loves me. If you should hurt Maurie, I'd die!"
The brute seized his stomach as he went into convulsions of near-hysteria, half-babbling, "You're a real funny comedian. Me hurt the teacher. Haw-haw!"
His trousers and shirt vanished from his ape-like body. He removed the T-shirt, hoisted Ida off the floor, and marched to his single, dirty sheeted bed where he dumped her on her back. "I don't like anyone to ignore me, kid."
"Be a little decent about this and let me go. Please don't hurt me."
"Cripes, you talk like I'm nuts."
He tore the sweater and bra off her quaking torso. Next came the toreador pants and stockings, until she lay beside him with only a pair of shorts on, as he had. Yankee's paws squeezed her breasts a hundred times over. He kissed her abdomen and thighs and toyed with the hot breast-tips like a child at Christmas time.
He was a Jekyl turned Hyde, a satyr who could not fill the cup of his lust high enough. Ida wept in pain as her flesh throbbed with chills and then fire. He ravished her again and again, each time by a quaint and degraded entrance, until she lay spent on the filthy bunk.
She sobbed for mercy, holding her legs when they reacted like a freshly-killed dog on the street, her sinews locking and sliding apart fiercely.
"You'll kill me!" she cried. "Don't touch it any more! Oh, Lord in heaven!"
"The Lord won't do a thing for you."
Yankee spat in disgust at the girl's face and sat up on the chair beside her. He hurled the toreadors at her knees. "Just remember who still wants you. And I'll win out, too. If you got any idea of squealin' on me, you better forget it or else Hayko will suffer. The dean at that fancy school would crucify Hayko if I should let 'em know he shacked up with a coed or two. So take off already!"
She was barely capable of walking, and yet her will pushed her onward as she drew the sweater around herself and trudged miserably out of his room.