Free The Folded Leaf by William Maxwell Page B

The girl sat up and began to fuss with her hair, and Dede said, “Haven’t you two guys got any home to go to?”
    Carson and Lynch had a feeling that maybe they weren’t wanted but they took off their caps and coats and stayed. Dede wound the victrola and put a record on, and after the girl had danced with him a couple of times she asked Carson and then Lynch to dance with her. Both of them were conscious of her perfume and of her arm resting lightly on their shoulders, and they felt that the place was different. Something that had been lacking before (the very thing, could it have been, that made them want the apartment in the first place?) had been found. They went off to the drugstore and came back with four malted milks, in cardboard containers, and it was like a party, like a housewarming.
    The other girls who ate lunch at LeClerc’s knew about the apartment and were curious about it but they wouldn’t go there. Edith Netedu was the only one. She was there quite often. She came with Dede Sandstrom but she belonged to all of them. They dressed up in her hat and coat and teased her about her big hips, and snatched her high-heeled pumps off and hidor played catch with them, and fought among each other for the privilege of dancing with her. She was a very good dancer and the boys liked particularly to waltz with her. She never seemed to get dizzy, no matter how much they whirled. They took turns, trying to make her fall down, and when one of the boys began to stagger, another would step in and take his place. Finally, when they were all sprawling on the couch or the floor, Dede Sandstrom would take over and dance with her quietly, cheek to cheek.
    When she was there, the place was at its best. They sang and did card tricks. Ray Snyder’s ukulele was passed around, and sometimes they just talked, in a relaxed way, about school and what colleges were the best and how much money they were going to make when they finished studying and got out into the world. Edith Netedu said she was going to marry a millionaire and have three children, all boys; and she was going to name them Tom, Dick, and Harry. When she and Dede Sandstrom put on their coonskin coats and tied their woolen mufflers under their chins and went out, they left sadness behind them.

15
    W hen Spud Latham suggested that Lymie Peters come home with him to supper, Lymie hesitated and then shook his head.
    “Why not?” Spud asked.
    “Well,” Lymie said, “I just don’t think I’d better.”
    They were waiting for a northbound car with the brick wall of the cemetery at their backs, and it was snowing.
    “Don’t you want to come?” Spud asked.
    “Yes, I’d like to very much.”
    “All right then,” Spud said, “that settles it.”
    Actually it didn’t settle anything for Lymie. He liked Spud, or at least he would have liked to be like him, and have broad shoulders and narrow hips and go around with his chin out looking for a fight. But nobody at school had ever asked him to come home like this, especially for a meal, and Lymie had a feeling that it wasn’t right. Spud’s father and mother would probably be nice to him and all that, but afterwards, when he had gone …
    A streetcar came along and the two boys got on it, paid their fares, and went inside. The Clark Street car was always slow and this one kept stopping at every block to let people on or off. Lymie had plenty of time to wish that he had said no. He tried to suggest to Spud that maybe he oughtn’t to be bringing somebody home like this without asking permission first, but Spud seemed to have no such anxiety. He raised his cap politely to a woman across the aisle who had been staring at them, and this sent Lymie off into a fit of the giggles. The woman was offended.
    When the car stopped at Foster Avenue, Spud took Lymie by the arm and, partly dragging, partly tickling him, got him off. They stood and argued then on the corner, while the snow dropping out of the darkness settled in