Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (i am reading a book TXT) 📕

place for her dolls; two for her future husband; and the last, the big blue one, right under where the eave pipe let the water onto the lawn, to keep her safe. If any of these was uncovered, no telling what evil might spread.

Then she remembered the two linden trees that stood in front of their house when they lived on Prospect Street. The night wind rattling those giant trees’ leaves was like some great voice reading from the pages of her destiny; and though she couldn’t decipher the actual words, she could never listen without being sure that something prophetic was happening. The memory of the sound blended with the drone of the ocean and July’s talking brought her back into the present.

“The ocean seems very nice today, don’t you agree?” he asked, still unable to take his eyes away.

His pretending to have been to the ocean before made Mal want to laugh out loud in merriment. “Yes, it is,” she exclaimed. “Let’s go swimming,” and she jumped up from her towel and ran off toward the water, leaving July to follow at a slower pace, his eyes darting from her to the ocean, back to her, back to the ocean. She jumped right in, swam a couple of strokes, doveunder, came up again, swam out farther and turned back to look for July. He stood in his brand-new swimming trunks at the edge of the water, viewing the waves suspiciously. She watched him gather his courage and walk forward to about knee level, then back cautiously out again. But at last he came in up to his shoulders, occasionally dunking his head under and moving several yards one way or another. He doesn’t know how to swim, she thought, and went over to him.

Despite all his apprehensions, within a little while July found himself having a good time in the water and laughing freely and watching Mal, who seemed so like a beautiful fish with her long hair streaked flat across her face and the water beading on her skin. This too seemed a feeling that he only participated in—lent to him by her and her world, which except in these few moments of almost illegal pleasure were as different from his real self and his world as day and night.

The water was too cold to stay in long and they returned to their towels, dried off and had something to drink. July was so exhilarated by his first successful contact with the ocean that he redoubled his attack on Mal and her private past with an almost obvious lust for detail, only occasionally being drawn back to the spectacle of the sea.

“What kind of paintings do you paint?” “How are they different from one, say, by——?” “Are they all oils?” “How large, would you judge, an average picture of yours was?” “Do you work standing up?” “Do you have a favorite color? Or flower?”

After spending a day with her parents, who generally didn’t let her talk at all, this attention was welcome and it made her feel important; but better were the times when they laughed together, and best were the fleeting glimpses she had when he seemed a caricature of himself: because that was when she knew she had loved him from the first moment, as though his soul showed through him like a trapped, cloudy light wanting to come out, wishing for more air, always wanting only a couple of mouthfuls of clean air. It seemed he had somewhere inside him,bottled and smoldering though it might be, more life than in twenty of all the other people she had known. There was simply no telling what he might do next. He was unlike anyone else. His views and opinions when rarely they came out were always completely unexpected. He was always complimenting her.

On the way back to Philadelphia Mal drove. The dashboard panel lights didn’t work and they rode along in darkness, only the passing cars’ lights illuminating their faces. The open air had made them both a little tired. Talked out, they sat quietly, experiencing the presence of each other unadulterated by expression or appearance. But the silence soon made July uncomfortable, or rather having someone else in it made him uncomfortable, and before long he was back to his questioning. Mal didn’t feel like talking about herself any more and her voice betrayed it. July retreated and remained locked in silence for the rest of the way.

Outside his roominghouse in the car, Mal asked him what the other people that lived there were like. “They’re all right,” answered July.

“Don’t you know any of them?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t, I guess. They don’t have anything in common with me.”

“How do you know if you don’t know them?”

“I know them well enough to know that.” Pause. “Mal,” he began again, cautiously, “this day was—” Then he abruptly stopped, and it seemed to her that it was emotion that had choked him. She slipped over on the seat and touched his shoulder with her hand. With her other hand she gently turned his face toward her so that in the faint light from the street they could look into each other’s eyes, and in July’s there were tears. Violently he tore himself away from her, opened the door and slammed it shut and started for the house. In an instant she reached into the back seat, reopened the door and stood beside the car.

“July,” she said. “You forgot your towel.”

He turned back to her and they stood looking at each other from thirty feet away like two people from different planets. Then he came over, took the towel and kissed her quickly and clumsily.

After he had gone in and Mal had turned around in the street and started back for her apartment, the door to the boardinghouse reopened and July came out, still holding his towel, and walked to the middle of the block, watching her drive away.

TEN

Mal Rourke’s parents disapproved