Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly Read Free Book Online

in.” It was so crowded that Jack had to put his arm around the back of the booth to make room and she looked athim with a little smile and purred under her breath, “Uum, nice!” and everyone laughed and said, “What a girl, Janie!” and I laughed, too, but my face felt stiff and the laugh came out funny though I don’t think anyone noticed it for they were all listening to her.
    I sat and listened too. It wasn’t because I hadn’t gone up to high school then; Jane hadn’t gone up there either but she knew the things to say. She knew what they were talking about when they said, “Remember the night after the Sheboygan game when there were seven of us coming home in the back seat?” and “Did you hear what happened to Bartie when he broke the drum at the graduation dance last week?” Jane did remember and she had heard and she added a few more things that made the boys laugh and look at each other and then back at her. And of course, I laughed too but I felt very uncomfortable and conspicuous; and though I drank my Coke in little sips it did not last long enough, and I had to sit sliding ice round and round in the empty glass and rack my brains for something to say, something that would make them remember that I was there or make them at least think that I thought what they were talking about was interesting too.
    I thought of saying brightly, as if the thought had just come to me, “Did Jack and Swede and I ever have fun sailboating last night!” But they might all turn and look at me, saying with a questioning inflection, “Yeah?” and I wouldn’t know how to go on from there. Maybe Jack wouldn’t want them to know wehad been sailboating—after all he hadn’t mentioned it himself, had he? He was lighting a cigarette for Jane just then and she blew the smoke in his face in a playful puff as she said, “Thanks,” and smiled a little half-smile with the side of her mouth that didn’t have the cigarette in it.
    Through my mind mulled all the things she used to tell me about Jack when she sat next to me in the history class. The evening dragged on and on. The Coke had left a sweetish, sickening taste in my mouth and my whole body ached with wretchedness.
    Swede’s beer glass was empty and he stood up saying, “Can I get anything for anybody?” and balancing the empty glasses in a pyramid, he went out to the bar. In the other room someone had put a nickel in the jukebox and music began to come through the round amplifier all hung with crepe paper above the door. Jane gave a little gasp and made her eyes and mouth very round. “Oh, that song—I love it! Jack, dance with me!” She stood up, holding out her hand.
    Jack looked at me and said, “’Scuse me, will you?” I didn’t blame him. Anyone with a date as dull as I was would naturally want to dance with someone else. Out of the corner of my eye I watched him. I didn’t care, I said to myself. I was all wrong about last night anyway. It didn’t make any difference—he was just like any other boy, any boy at all. I was all wrong.
    The music seemed to fill the whole room at Pete’s with its poignant tilt, and the little liquid waves of music seemed tocurl in and out the latticework that arched the booths. I sat staring at the table and slid my Coke glass so that it covered the carved heart with the initial J in it. Of course I was all wrong about last night.
    There were other people dancing now but it didn’t seem to matter; Jack and Jane weren’t looking at anyone. She was much shorter than he and danced with her arm crooked around his neck and her head back so that her fluffy hair hung halfway down her back. Neither of them seemed to be saying anything just dancing and letting the music float round them. I tried to keep from watching them too hard. One of the fellows in our booth became restless and muttering,” ’Scuse me,” went out to the bar. I don’t care, I thought. Let him go. I know I’m dull. I don’t care if he wants to