“But you didn’t?”
“Not to him, no. There were some complications. His family was pressuring him to find someone more suitable from a wealthier family.”
“How did you feel? Betrayed? Stupid?”
“Both for a little while, but I got over it when I met my husband.”
“Did he care?”
“He wouldn’t come out and say it, but he cared. I guess every man wants to be his girl’s first, but it wasn’t enough to sour our romance. I will tell you I was glad I wasn’t totally inexperienced. When I realized that, I regretted my first serious romance less, and then I read somewhere that a romance without sex is only imaginary. And I knew women who saved themselves for marriage and never got married. They weren’t nuns, either. I know this is all confusing, but the decision has to be very personal and shouldn’t be based on what everyone else is doing or did, Clara Sue.”
“How do you know when a boy really likes you, as opposed to just doing it with you?”
“Wow.” She thought a moment. “The problem is that for that moment or that time, it could be both. It’s not whether he really likes you, I suppose. It’s for how long he will before he really likes someone else.”
“So you don’t believe in Romeo and Juliet?”
“One person out there for everyone? I suppose it happens. It doesn’t hurt to believe in it unless you reject everyone because you’re waiting for all sorts of bells and whistles that might never come. You have to have confidence in yourself, the confidence that you’ll know when someone right for you happens.”
“The parents of one of our girlfriends are getting a divorce because her father cheated on her mother. I bet they thought they’d be in love forever.”
“That’s sad. I feel sorrier for your girlfriend than her parents, though. We don’t know what sort of relationship her parents have or had, so it’s hard to make conclusions. My Faith likes to say, ‘Judge not that you be not judged.’ I think she’s probably right.” She paused, her eyelids narrowing. “This boyfriend of yours, Aaron Podwell, he’s pretty sophisticated, huh? He’s kind of smooth.”
“And proud of it. You realized that, huh?”
She smiled. “You have to be a little suspicious when they’re that perfect. Listen to your own voices, Clara Sue, not his and not anyone else’s. Whatever decision you make, it will be yours and, I’m sure, right for you.” She was silent a moment. “I guess I’m not much help, huh?”
“No. You are,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Thanks for trusting me enough to ask me,” she said, and stood up. “You’re quite a girl, Clara Sue. You’re stronger th
an you think.”
I gazed into her eyes. Was I? She looked sincere. Before I turned to leave, she embraced me, gave me a hug and a kiss, and stepped back. I didn’t say anything. I glanced at the bed my parents used to sleep in, imagining them there listening and agreeing, and then I walked out.
All the remainder of the day, I anticipated Aaron calling. I rehearsed how I would sound and what I would say. I went from total forgiveness to indifference to anger, especially as the day waned and it was becoming clear to me that he expected I would call him and not vice versa. Perhaps my not calling convinced him that I was angry about him being with Sandra and he was sorry and didn’t know how to react. Or maybe he had decided to move on. I was tempted to call him to see which way he would go. In the end, I went to sleep thinking it was better to just let things happen.
In the morning, before I went out to get into the car to be taken to school, I anticipated a phone call or perhaps the bell at the gate to be sounded and to see him coming around to pick me up, but that didn’t happen. Grandpa had left for work, and Dorian was busy with a full day for Count Piro: physical examinations, his physical therapy, and then finally perhaps bringing him to the living room to enjoy the trains.
I wouldn’t deny that I was very nervous, especially when I entered the building alone and paused for a few seconds to see if Aaron would suddenly appear. He didn’t, so I went on to homeroom. Lila was already there, chatting with the other girls. From the looks on their faces when they saw me, I knew I was the hot topic. Sandra wasn’t sitting with them. She was talking to Billy Gibson, but she turned to give me a smile of self-satisfaction. I tried to look as indifferent as I could, but with everyone throwing questions my way, it was difficult.
“No, Aaron and I hadn’t broken up, because we weren’t officially going steady. No, he didn’t call to apologize. He had nothing to apologize for if we weren’t going steady, right?”
Nothing I could say would satisfy them, but my seeming not to care enough to sound mournful started them on other topics. I had yet to see Aaron. When the bell rang for us to go to our first class, I anticipated him waiting for Sandra in the hall, as he would for me, but he wasn’t there for her, either. She walked off with Billy as if they were the two who had been together Saturday night, but then again, she was like that with almost any boy in the school.
I didn’t see Aaron until after the second morning class. It was only the two-minute break, but what I noticed was that he wasn’t paying any more attention to Sandra than he was to me. He didn’t even look my way.
Later, at lunch, however, he stepped up behind me as I entered the cafeteria with Lila and Audrey and hooked my right arm to pull me aside.
“I like how cool you’re being,” he said. “Makes you sexier.”
“I don’t feel sexier, but I guess we all see what we want.”
“I thought you might call yesterday,” he said, now with what, for him, was an uncharacteristically insecure smile.
“Did you?” I asked. I did to him what I had seen Myra do many times to a maid or someone working on the estate who had obviously done something wrong. She would hold her gaze like a spotlight on them without speaking or changing her expression. Any excuse or denial would choke up in their throats.
He kept talking, now nervously. “I thought you said you would be too busy, so I figured you should be the one to call. Because of you, I did all my homework and studied for an English test. You’re having a bad influence on me,” he added, trying to be funny now. “I had a miserable weekend.”