The Enchanted Isle

2

When he saw me he got up and took my bag and coat. He was medium height and kind of good-looking, except for the slant of his face, off to one side, with dark hair, black eyes, and sideburns. He had on gray slacks and a zipper jacket and looked around nineteen, three years older than I was. But when he sat down again, it wasn’t beside the bag and coat, but between me and them, kind of close, which was OK with me, except he was kind of rank from not having had a bath. I didn’t mind too much, but didn’t like it much either. However, no use magnifying small things, so when he said “Hiya,” I did, and we took it from there. He said what nice weather we were having, and I said yeah, it sure was, He said it was generally balmy in June, and I said there was that about it. We went along like that a few minutes, and then he asked if I was taking the bus. I said, “Yeah,” and then right away took it back, because, like I said, I wasn’t sure yet, down deep inside me, if I was taking that bus or not. I stammered, “I mean, I’m thinking about it. I... have my ticket bought, but I haven’t decided yet.” But then at last, for no good reason at all, except he was looking at me, except he kept looking at me, like I must be some kind of a kook, I did make up my mind — I knew I was taking that bus. I said, “Yeah, I’ve pretty well made up my mind. I guess I’m taking it, yeah.” And then: “I am! You can bet your sweet life on that!” And then, blurting it out, still for the same reason of how he was looking at me: “I’m leaving home if you have to know! I’m going to Baltimore! I’m going to find my father — my real father I’m talking about, not this other one, the one that beat me up!”

“...The one that what?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t unload on you.”

“Well, hey! It’s what a friend is for, isn’t it?”

“I could use one all right.”

He patted my hand, and we sat for some little time. Then: “I’m leaving home too, and I’m bound for Baltimore too. But I’m different from you — I’m not leaving, I was put. Out, I mean, like Bill Bailey, except without any fine-tooth comb till I bought myself one.” He took a comb from his pocket and waved it around at me. Then he went on, “Without anything, if you can believe it. Some friends took me in, but this morning they put me out. Stuff was missing from the pantry, and they said I took it and sold it. I said I hadn’t. I offered to prove I hadn’t, but would they let me? Would they believe what I said? Why is it my father, my mother, my friends, everyone except maybe my sister, got to believe somebody else, not me? Why can’t they ever believe me?”

“I’ve been through that, plenty.”

“But why? Will you tell me?”

“With that stepfather of mine I know why — I hope to tell you I do. I’d be ashamed to say. I’d be ashamed even to breathe it.”

“...When does your bus come through?”

“Twenty after. But I thought it was your bus too.”

“I wish it was. I’d love to travel with you, and Baltimore’s where I’m bound. The thing of it is I’m flat. I told you how they put me out — without a comb, without a brush, without a dime, and without one word being said about the two hundred they owe me, that they’re holding for me, that they’re supposed to be holding for me, that by rights ought to be mine... How much money you got?”

“...Little over seventy-four dollars.”

“Look, if you could lend me two dollars, then I could buy me a ticket and keep you company on this trip.”

“OK.”

“Thanks. You’re swell. What’s your name?”

“Mandy — Mandy Vernick. It’s really Amanda, but Mandy’s what they call me. What’s yours?”

“Rick. Rick Davis.”

“Rick? That’s for Richard?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I like it better than Dick.”

By then I had out my billfold to give him the money. He said, “Make it five — then I can hold my head up.”

So I made it five.

He went and bought a ticket, and then our bus came along, “three-twenty, right on time,” as he said, taking a flash at my watch. It was half full, but the back seat was empty and we took it, me sitting next to the window, him putting my bag and coat topside, in the rack over our heads. We passed a meadow off to one side, with a plane taxiing on it, a little yellow plane, and he said, “The College Park Flying Field — oldest one in the world. Did you know that, Mandy?”

“I never even heard of it.”

“Well, it is.”

That was the whole conversation for at lease half the trip. The bus was a local, stopping every three or four miles, but we held hands and didn’t mind. Then, though, I started talking, half to myself, and it all commenced coming out, about Steve, the real reason he had for spanking me, and even about Mother, who I shouldn’t have mentioned at all but had to; I just couldn’t help it. And yet I mightn’t have if it hadn’t been for him, listening so sympathetic. Seems funny, the way he treated me later, that I didn’t catch on at the time the kind of a guy he was. But I didn’t and went on and on, at last even telling about my father and how I would call him up soon as I got into the bus station in Baltimore. But then for the first time, ’stead of being so sympathetic, he shook his head no. “What’s the matter, Rick? I say something out of line?”

“Mandy, it’s none of my business — tell me shut my big mouth and I shut it. But that don’t sound good to me; it don’t sound good at all.”

“How do you mean it don’t sound good?”

“Well? Suppose he’s not home. What then?”

“I can wait, can’t I? And call again?”

“Suppose he’s out of town?”

“...I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Suppose he married after the bust-up? The one he had with your mother? Suppose his wife answers?”

“...I can ask to speak to him, can’t I?”

“Suppose she asks who’s calling?”

“Well? Can’t I say?”

“And she says, ‘Oh my, I didn’t realize! Oh my, will you hold, Miss Vernick? Oh my, he speaks of you often! Oh my, he’ll be so excited!’ In the pig’s right eye she will.”

“You mean she wouldn’t like it?”

“Well, would you?”

“...OK, what am I going to do?”

“Hold everything, let me think.”

So he thought, and then: “One thing you should do, Mandy, is give it the old switcheroo, so ’stead of you leading to him, he’ll be leading to you. I mean, forget that pitch, that you call him and then he’ll ask you there — to his house, or wherever it is that he lives. Fix it that he comes to you — it’ll make all the difference, all the difference in the world. Meaning you must have a place to stay, a place you can ask him to, so he comes to see you.”

“How do you mean, a place?”

“Well, like an apartment.”

“I see, I see.”

“Then you invite him, like a lady does.”

“OK. But I can’t get a place tonight.”

“It’s what’s been bothering me, Mandy.”

“I’ll have to go to a motel.”

“That’s what’s been bothering me. You can’t.”

“Why can’t I?”

“They won’t take you in, that’s why. A young girl? Alone? Wants a single and bath? For what purpose, Mandy? For all they know, you could be using that room for business of a very peculiar kind.”

“Oh.”

“There’s plenty of that going on.”

“Well, what am I going to do?”

“I’ve been figuring on it, and I’m your friend, no? And what’s a friend for? We could go to the motel together.”

“...You mean, as Mr. and Mrs.?”

“Well, who’s going to know the difference?”

“I’d have to think about that.”

Then I told him, “OK.”

“I already said, you’re swell.”

“Rick, what name are we going to use?”

“Well, there’s a Baby Ruth sign — why not John P. Ruth and wife?”

“Better make it Richard P. Ruth — I might call you Rick by mistake, tip them off without meaning to.”

“Richard P. Ruth is good. Mrs. Ruth, hiya?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Ruth — how’s your own self?”

We both laughed and squeezed hands, and then I said, “Rick, there’s a motel — a little one, maybe not so expensive as the others. And we’re already in Baltimore. I’ve been here before and can tell by the brick houses with white doorsteps.”

“That motel was put there for us. OK.”

He got my bag and coat down, and at the next stop, which was in the same block as the motel, we got off.