When She Was Good by Roth Philip

Author:Roth, Philip [Roth, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307788603
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-04-20T06:00:00+00:00

Tuesday, Aunt Irene for lunch at the Hotel Thomas Kean.

Wednesday, his mother and father for dinner at The Song of Norway.

Thursday, Uncle Julian, a drink in the taproom of the Kean, lasting from five in the afternoon until nine in the evening.

At nine-thirty Roy dropped into a sofa in the downstairs living room of The Bastille. The corner in which Lucy had chosen to wait for him was the darkest in the room.

“And I haven’t eaten,” he said. “I haven’t even eaten!”

“I have some crackers in my room,” she whispered.

“They’re not going to treat me like this,” he said, glaring down his legs at the tips of his Army shoes. “I won’t sit by and listen to threats, I’ll tell you that.”

“… Do you want me to get the crackers?”

“That isn’t the point, Lucy! The point is, pushing me around! Thinking he could make me sit there! Just make me, you know? Well, I don’t need them that bad, I’ll tell you that. And I don’t want them either, not if they’re going to take this kind of attitude. What an attitude to take—to me! To somebody they’re supposed to care about!”

He got up and walked to the window. Looking out at the quiet street, he banged a fist into his palm. “Boy!” she heard him say.

She remained curled up on the sofa, her legs back under her skirt. It was a posture she had seen the other girls take while talking to their boy friends in the dormitory living room. If the house mother came into the living room, it would seem as though nothing unusual were going on. So far no one in the dorm knew anything; no one was going to, either. In her two and a half months at school Roy hadn’t left her alone enough to make any close friends, and even those few girls she had begun to be friendly with on the floor, she had drawn away from now.

“Look,” said Roy, coming back to the sofa, “I’ve got the G.I. Bill, haven’t I?”

“Yes.”

“And I’ve got savings still, right? Other guys played cards, other guys shot crap—but I didn’t. I was waiting to get out. So I saved! Purposely. And they should know that! I told them, in fact—but they don’t even listen. And if worst ever came to worst, I’d sell the Hudson, too, even with all the work I put in it. Do you believe me, Lucy? Because it’s true!”

“Yes.”

Was this Roy? Was this Lucy? Was this them together?

“But they think money is everything. Do you know what he is, my Uncle Julian? Maybe I’m just finding out—but he’s a materialist. And what a vocabulary! It’s worse than you even think it is. What respect for somebody else!”

“What did he say? Roy, what kind of threats?”

“Oh, who cares. Money threats. And my father—him too. You know, by and large, whether he knew it or not, I used to respect him. But do you think he has any emotional respect for me, either? He’s trying to treat me like I’m in his printing class again.

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