April North by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online

sink.
    April scampered up the stairs, closed her door and unpacked her suitcase. Nice lying, she thought. Very smooth, although if Craig had heard her he might have revised his opinion of her maturity. Still, she had handled things well. The suitcase gambit had brushed by without parental notice, the missed dinner was forgotten and Jim Bregger no longer had a leg to stand on as far as Mrs. North was concerned.
    Now all she had to do was get rid of Bregger and sit on her heels for a day until Craig picked her up. As soon as he did, everything was going to be roses. She knew that as well as she knew her own name.
    Because Craig was something special. The difference between a man like Craig and boys like Danny Duncan and Bill Piersall was about the same as the difference between 1949 Beaujolais and the ninth pressing of last year’s California grapes. Craig was a man, not a typical Antrim man who grew stolid and stupid the day he passed twenty-one, but a cosmopolitan type who actually matured and who actually remained young inside. Craig had drive and fire, and Craig appreciated her, and Craig—
    She wondered if she was in love with him.
    Probably, she decided. Love was a funny word, a tough thing to get hold of. For a stupid while she had imagined herself in love with Danny and as soon as she had shown her love for him he had decided to share her fair white body with the rest of the male half of the senior class. So she was not exactly sure what love was, or whether or not she was ready to think about it.
    But she was fairly sure about Craig. She was sure that he knew more than she did, and that he had done more than she had, and that he could make her life worthwhile again. As he had said, she might not go for rides in hotrods any more but Craig’s Mercedes could give Bill’s rod cards and spades and leave it standing at the post. And she had a fair notion that Craig’s parties could do the same for the senior prom.
    Well, she was going to have fun now. Of course, Craig expected her to sleep with him, but this did not bother her. You cheapened yourself when you let a high-school boy sleep with you—you only turned yourself into a tramp. But when you slept with a man like Craig Jeffers it was part of being a mature individual in a sophisticated world. She would not feel cheap, not after an affair with Craig. She would feel like a woman.
    She finished unpacking her suitcase and went downstairs again. Her father was in the living room, the evening paper in front of his face. He lowered the paper and smiled slightly at her. It was a typical central Ohio smile, she thought. Empty and meaningless and a little silly-looking.
    “Hi,” he said. “Ma said you ate over at the Liverpool’s.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Hungry? There’s some roast left in the fridge.”
    “I had plenty to eat, Dad.”
    “Well,” he said. “Have a seat, hon.”
    She sat down on the flowered couch and he returned to his newspaper. The same thing every night, she thought, with Mom doing dishes and Dad reading the paper. She wondered suddenly if they made love any more. For people that old still to have sex seemed to her somehow indecent. But to think that they might have just given it up seemed even worse.
    How horrible to grow too old for it, she thought. Just to sit around and realize that most of life had already passed you by. She wondered just how old you were when you were too old for it. When did you stop wanting and needing it? And when did men stop wanting and needing you?
    She tried to imagine her mother, walking alone down a street in another city. Suppose a man saw her, she thought. Would he give her that look? Would he want to have sex with her? Would he think she was still desirable? And what would her mother do if a man made a pass at her? And what would—
    I’m being silly, she told herself. She crossed one leg over the other and looked idly at her knee. Did Craig think she had nice legs? Did Craig think she had a nice