Chapter 4
A long shower relaxed me, and dressed in a blue sport jacket that was a little tight across the shoulders I walked down the stairs and through a hallway to the back of the house.
There was a steady hum pf talk punctuated by sudden sharp laughter or a shrill giggle, and behind this noise the steady beat of a rock song.
I stepped outside and paused at the top of the steps that led down onto the flagstone terrace, and for a moment no one noticed me. Then everyone seemed to glance over at once, and in the same instant there were quick, whispered conversations and then beaming smiles.
I plunged into the crowd, and from out of nowhere Peggy Sue scurried up, her black eyes sparkling and her sweetest hostess smile crinkling her lips.
"Why, I was just wondering if you'd fallen in upstairs and drowned," she said. "Everybody knows you're here, and they're anxious to meet you. But first, you probably want something cold to drink, don't you, Carl?"
"I could use a drink," I said.
Peggy Sue led me through the crowd, and people smiled and spoke and stared a bit openly. Everyone was young-obviously this was a party for Peggy Sue's crowd. Off to the side, I saw a middle-aged couple and laughed to myself as I realized all these nice girls would certainly have a chaperon at any party.
And then I remembered Peggy Sue and Millie and the interior laugh knotted up in my gut and I glanced at the pretty smile Peggy Sue flashed as she looked over her shoulder, and at the subtle but provocative way her lovely, rounded buttocks moved beneath the white linen dress.
We paused at a long table covered with a white cloth and jammed with plates of shrimp, oysters, hors d'oeuvres and potato chips, bottles of bourbon, Scotch, gin and vodka, tonic, 7-Up, ginger ale and Coke, and a huge, crystal punch bowl filled with pink liquid in which floated cherries and chunks of ice.
Behind the table stood a short, gray-haired Negro man in a white jacket, whose face was deeply etched with wrinkles. As we approached, he smiled and nodded.
"Carl, this is Raynold," Peggy Sue said. "He's been with my family for many years. Raynold, this is Mister Carl. He's going to be visiting old Jamie and her daddy."
Raynold's smile faded an instant at the mention of Jamie and her father. But he quickly smiled again.
"Pleased to meet you, Mister Carl," he said, and nodded. "You sure picked a hot day to come visiting. What can I fix to cool you off?"
"Glad to meet you, Raynold," I said. "A vodka and tonic would be good." As he mixed the drink, I caught myself staring at Peggy Sue's lips, then her enormous breasts surging against the thin, virginal-white linen.
I looked away and took a tall, frosting glass from Raynold. The drink was strong and bone-cold, and I poured down two quick swallows.
"Well, now that you're getting yourself cool, it's time to meet everybody, Carl," Peggy Sue said. "Then we can dance, if you like."
"Fine," I said, and took another quick swallow before turning to face the party guests who were standing in groups talking or dancing to some song from a stereo set
Peggy Sue led me to group after group, all people in their late teens and early twenties, the men generally tanned with crew-cut brown or blonde hair, dressed in expensive summer sport jackets with ties, the girls ranging from plain to blandly pretty to damn beautiful, and I shook hand after hand and exchanged the inanities necessary at mass introductions.
The girls smiled and a couple giggled, and the men smiled, too, and made light talk, and there was music in the background, and the brightly colored Japanese lanterns swayed in a thin, warm, breeze that brought the deep, sweet smell of honeysuckle. But permeating every movement, every smile, every handshake was tension, uneasiness, even wariness.
Another Negro man in a white jacket served me a second drink before I finished the first. I pumped the hand of a tall, broad-shouldered boy named Ted, and saw that we were a few feet from the middle-aged couple. But as I turned toward them, Peggy Sue put her hand on my arm.
"Just a minute, Carl," she said, softly. "Before you meet Mother and Daddy, I want you to meet poor Millie and some of Jamie's really special girl friends."
Peggy Sue took my hand and we walked over to a cluster of white, wrought-iron lawn furniture beside a stereo set which blasted out a Beatles song to which several couples were dancing.
Four girls were gathered around Millie Perkins, who was dabbing at her brown eyes with a daintily patterned lace handkerchief. Millie stood up as we approached, and as I stared at those little-ghi eyes filled with grief and seven kinds of wronged and raped innocence, I had the strangest feeling, a combination of attraction and repulsion that was overwhelming.
". . .so awfully glad to meet you, Carl," Millie was saying, and I shook her small hand as another girl glanced at her watch, giggled and whispered something to Peggy Sue.
The wind tousled Millie's short, honey-blonde hair, and I thought of that fragile, incredibly lovely face between Peggy Sue's thighs, and saw that her apparently doll-like body had been somewhat deceptive from a distance, because though small, she had fairly large breasts and nice hips that flared slightly against her tight, powder-blue dress.
All this took an instant, and then Peggy Sue introduced me to Kerry Lawrence, a sexy, pixie-cut, round-faced girl with green eyes, short, shaggy red hair, small breasts, narrow waist-a slim girl with perfectly shaped legs and incredibly provocative buttocks that poked out too fax, but just far enough to be damned arousing. We shook hands, and exchanged greetings, and she giggled.
Kerry, it was obvious, giggled a lot, in a childish way, yet when she moved, it was with a liquid like, very grown up lady type movement that accentuated the jutting buttocks without being overly obvious or cheap.
Next, it was Sandy Clark, who was no more than 5 ft. 1 in., and who stared at me with enormous, robin's-egg-blue eyes, stared in a way that was not only challenging sexually, but was also unnerving. As she said, "Pleased to meet you," and we shook hands, she glanced at her watch.
Her small, beautiful face was covered with freckles and framed by shoulder-length curly brown hair. Sandy had moderate-sized breasts and lovely legs and buttocks and she seemed to be always doing something with her puffed, damp lips-twisting them slightly, nibbling the lower lip, licking the lips.
As I stepped from Sandy, she glanced at her watch again and so did Kerry and the nearby music seemed louder, the frantic rock beat more intense, the hum of nervous, tense noise from behind us more desperate. And Millie was crying softly.
Then I was shaking hands with Julie Rawlson, who was five feet seven inches tall, maybe half an inch more, a willowly girl with rather sharply uptilted breasts. She was burned a heavy brown from the sun, and her short, dirty-blonde hair was sun-bleached a shade lighter.
She was more cute than pretty, with an insolent, provocative smile, dark brown eyes, and slim, powerful legs whose muscle tone indicated she liked sports.
And finally, as Millie got up, smiled quickly at me and walked away with three of the girls, I shook hands with Emily Ann Walters, who must have been at least 19 or so, but whose slim face looked about 14, and whose blue eyes looked younger, and whose sweet, pleased-to-meet-you smile showed her deep dimples.
And this very thin little girl, with the child-face and short-cropped, blonde hair, had one of the largest pair of breasts I'd ever seen, out of all proportion to her body, or most any body, gigantic mounds that thrust proudly upward and strained against her sleeveless white blouse.
"I heard Jamie talk so much about you, I couldn't wait until you got here," she said, in a soft voice that inflected the end of a declarative sentence as though it were a question.
"Do you know where Jamie went or when she'll be back?" I asked.
Emily Ann glanced at Peggy Sue. "Why, no, Carl, I don't know," she said, quickly. "Jamie and her daddy pop off like that sometime, don't they, Peggy Sue?"
"Why, they sure do," Peggy Sue said. "But I told Carl we'd take good care of him until Jamie got back."
"We'll sure do that," Emily Ann said. "What time is it, Peggy Sue?"
"Now, you stop that, you hear me?" Peggy Sue said. "Everybody has simply got to stop looking at their watches every two minutes."
"I don't think midnight will ever get here, I swear," Emily Ann said. "I think I'll go right on over and have me something like gin to drink."
"Emily Ann! You had one," Peggy Sue said. "What will everybody think? Oh well, I guess tonight is sort of special." And when she thought I wasn't looking, Peggy Sue flashed a smile at Emily Ann.
Mr. and Mrs. Conway had been staring at me for the past several minutes, and now they made a point of talking busily and looking the other way as Peggy Sue took me over. But they turned quickly to us when we approached, smiled deeply and welcomed me to Harrisville.
Mr. Conway was a short, fat, red-faced man in his early fifties, and every word and every gesture was lined with nervousness, and as he talked too rapidly and too politely, his small eyes darting quickly over my face, as though trying to pry beneath my superficial words and determine my real relationship with Jamie and her father.
Mrs. Conway, who was also short, but very thin, said little, but merely nodded at her husband's every sentence.
"And how long will you be in Harrisville?" Mr. Conway asked.
"I really don't know." I said.
"Well, it's a fine town," he said, 'Though recently, there has been this terrible ordeal. With the stranger and the Perkins child. Thank the Lord the ordeal is nearly over for everyone."
"Except poor Millie, I'm afraid, dear," Mrs. Conway said.
"I don't want to talk about it anymore, Daddy," Peggy Sue said.
"Shall we dance?" I asked.
There was a slow record now and Peggy Sue snuggled into my arms and we danced slowly, around the flagstone terrace among the other couples, and Peggy Sue knew just how to rub her body against mine in ways that weren't obvious to anyone, but which sure as hell were obvious to my body.
And in turn I danced with each of the girls, and each of them, Emily Ann and Kerry, Sandy and Julie, moved their bodies to excite me, moved in secret subtle ways that must have driven dozens of young, scared boys to the brink of erotic disaster on many a terrace and country club dance floor.
And then I danced with Millie as the bizarre party continued, and the pace quickened and even the nice girls drank gin and vodka and people moved nervously and glanced at watches.
Millie, too, worked her violated body against mine, and her tears wet my white shirt and sweat matted my undershirt to my back. The humidity seemed to rise, the smell of honeysuckle was stronger, and fireflies blinked on and off in the dark garden as that strange imitation of a New Year's Eve party staggered toward midnight.
But un-like New Year's Eve, this midnight brought only a sudden silence, as every movement stopped, and the tension seemed to drain from people as though someone had pulled a master switch.
I stood alone with a drink. Millie was nowhere to be seen, and Peggy Sue had vanished also, and as I gulped down the cold vodka and stared at the people who stood still and quiet, I thought wildly of the garden scene again.
And then people moved as though one cue, finished drinks and thanked the Conways and fled the terrace as though the ark waited around the house and they would be caught in the flood if they did not escape. I waited my turn as the terrace emptied and the street was filled with car sounds and screeching tires.
I had lingered until last, hoping to say good night, then slip next door and make certain Jamie and her father had not returned. I thanked Mr. and Mrs. Conway, and said good night to Raynold, then looked around for Peggy Sue.
I saw Emily Ann, who smiled and vanished around the house with a tall, blonde boy, and then Kerry, who called good night. And then the Conways had gone and I was alone, except for the Negro men who were cleaning up.
To hell with Peggy Sue, I muttered to myself. I'd had all of this incredible night I could take. I wanted to check on Jamie and then get back to the hotel, where I could drink alone and try to fit some of these un-likely pieces together.
I walked quickly from the terrace and through the iron gate in the hedge, and there, coming from a dark house, was Peggy Sue.
"I went to turn the lights out," she said. "And then I waited for you to head for your car. I knew you'd come this way to check again. But they're not back yet."
"Well, it's all over now but the shouting," I said. "And where is poor little Millie?"
Peggy Sue stared at me an instant, those dark eyes narrowed again. Then the eyes sparkled and she smiled sweetly.
"All over but the shouting," she said, and shook her head. "Now, that's an awfully strange thing to say, Carl. A couple of the girls took Millie home. Worst thing in the world is for her to be alone, I mean, even with her parents."
"Yes, that would be awful," I said. "Well, I appreciate your hospitality, but I've had a hell of a day, and I think I'll go back to the hotel."
She put her hand on my arm and stepped closer, her musky perfume mingling with the scent of honeysuckle. "Oh, not yet, Carl," she said. "Why, we haven't had any time at all to talk, and I'd like to know all about you. Mother and Daddy think I went over to Millie's so we could be alone for a while. We could walk back into the garden behind Jamie's house, and Mother and Daddy couldn't see us at all."
"Isn't that improper for a nice girl," I asked.
"Now you're making fun of me," she said, in a little-girl-hurt voice. "You're older and all, and I do feel like a child, Carl." She circled a shirt button with a sharp nail, and looked up at me, her eyes narrow. "But even a nice girl might surprise you, in a place like that garden."
She stepped closer, and her breasts brushed my chest. My body tensed with a thousand hot points of sexual excitement and I remembered her earlier kiss.
I told myself this might be a perfect chance to find out what was really happening, and knew I'd be a fool to offend Peggy Sue at this point.
"All right, let's go for a walk in the garden," I said.
Peggy Sue smiled and took my hand. We walked beside the tall hedge and though I told myself, that I disliked this little girl, I also had to admit that she was one lovely and provocative woman.
And of course I knew she was involved in something awful with Millie, with the rape thing for all I knew.
But I inhaled her perfume and kept thinking of those lips, and frankly, I found it was a little difficult to walk.