CHAPTER SIX

I almost didn’t go to the city, I was so annoyed at Jordon, and annoyed at myself for being so stupid and gullible, but Sandy had talked me into it. The doctor was very nice, and made me feel better about the whole thing, but I came home determined to kill Jordon if I ever saw him again.

So of course he showed up the next afternoon. “Don’t say anything,” he said, as I opened the door, just for the pleasure of slamming it in his face. “Just come out here and listen to me.”

“Go away,” I whispered. I would have shouted except my parents were home.

“Paula,” he said, and grabbed me by the arm. Unwillingly, I followed him outside. “Stop making snap judgments.”

“Snap judgments!” I shouted, since there was no way my parents could hear me. “What the hell do you think you’re talking about, Jordon! Just go away, get out of my life. Okay?”

“No,” he said. “I wanted to see you. God knows, I wanted to see you. I couldn’t.”

“And why not?”

“I had reasons,” he said.

“Great,” I said. “Forgive me, Jordon, how could I ever have been so foolish. You had reasons. What more do I have to hear?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” he said.

“I’m not trying to be becoming,” I said. “I am furious.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “If anybody had done that to me, I’d be furious too.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Very generous of you, I’m sure.”

“Don’t push me,” he said.

“Jordon, you’ve done nothing but push me,” I said. “And used me.” I tried not to, but I began crying. “So just shut up and go away.”

“God, Paula. I’m sorry,” he said. “I wanted to see you so badly.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked, trying not to sob too loudly.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” he said. “It’s so childish.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“My parents held me incommunicado,” he said.

“What?” I asked, and inhaled deeply and noisily.

“Here,” he said, and handed me a handkerchief. I blew into it gratefully. “They were keeping me prisoner. Honest.”

“Why?” I asked, and decided to hold onto the handkerchief.

“Punishment,” he said. “For coming in late.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“I wish I were,” he said. “I’m on a strict curfew this summer. Home by twelve. We got in closer to one thirty, you may recall.”

“Twelve?” I asked. “But you’re nineteen.”

“You know that and I know that,” he said. “My parents still think I’m a kid, who can be punished into behaving himself.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked.

“There are rules to every game,” he said. “It would have been against the rules.”

“You could have had Jonny call me.”

“No,” he said. “There are rules to our game too.”

“So they just locked you in for three days,” I said. “I suppose they fed you bread and water.”

“I ate with them,” he said.

“Very generous of them,” I said. “Jordon, you’re bigger than your mother and you’re younger than your father. Why didn’t you just refuse?”

“You don’t understand, Paula,” he said. “My parents are supporting me. They’re trying, in their own stupid way, to keep me honest and out of trouble this summer. This is their way of doing it. I owe it to them to try to follow their rules.”

“You’re sick,” I said. “The whole thing is sick.”

“We’re no ad for mental health week,” he said with a smile. “Am I forgiven?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Sure,” he said. “You can turn me down, and I’ll go home and jump out of my bedroom window. It’s only on the second floor, but black and blue marks can be fatal.”

“All right,” I said, because I didn’t want him to see me smiling. “I forgive you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I like that. Most people don’t.”

“I don’t blame most people,” I said.

“Well,” he said. “Did you have a nice week?”

“Very nice,” I said. “I went to the city.”

“Oh,” he said. “Did you visit friends?”

“No,” I said. “I went to a doctor.”

“That sounds like fun,” he said.

“It was,” I said. “Let’s go to the cottage.”

“Okay,” he said. “Can we drive?”

“Sure,” I said, and ran inside to prepare. Then we went to the cottage and made love.

“I thought about you,” he said afterwards. “For all those days, that was all I thought about.”

“What did you think?”

“I thought about how lucky I was,” he said. “You’re going to keep me alive this summer. Just you.”

“What an awesome responsibility,” I said. “I don’t know if I can live up to it.”

“You have to,” he said. “I’m not suicidal …”

“That’s nice to know,” I said.

“But I am desperate,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed college, you know. I enjoyed the freedom. And now I’ve lost it.”

“You’ll get it back in September.”

“I know,” he said. “But patience isn’t my strong point either.”

“You have to make it through the summer,” I said. “You’ll be okay in the fall, and then whatever Jonny does, you can get a job next summer and not live at home. It’s just these two months.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” he said. “But you’re helping those two months a lot.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I thought about you,” he said. “I don’t usually think about people, especially when I’m not happy, but I thought about you all the time. I think I love you, Paula.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I think I love you too.”

“You don’t have to say that,” he said. “It’s nice to hear, but you really don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t believe you,” he said.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t believe you either.”

“Oh,” he said, and turned away from me.

“I want to believe you,” I said. “I think you believe yourself. Isn’t that enough?”

“I guess so,” he said. “I’m not in the habit of telling people I love them.”

“I’m sure you’re not,” I said. “I’m sure it was very hard for you to say.”

“Stop patronizing me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This whole thing is very hard for me. I’m trying to follow the rules, but you keep throwing new ones at me.”

“I want you to believe me,” he said. “I’m sure you usually believe people when they tell you things.”

“True,” I said.

“So just do the same for me, and I promise you I’ll only tell the truth.”

“I’ll try,” I said, because I wanted to believe him more than I wanted anything else right then.

As soon as I could, I called Jonny. I knew it was a risk, but there were things I had to know about Jordon before I kept on with it. And I wanted to keep on very badly.

Fortunately, Jonny picked up the phone. “It’s Paula,” I said. “I want to talk to you.”

“Sure,” he said. “When?”

“Tomorrow afternoon?” I asked. I had a date with Jordon that night.

“Fine. Your house?”

“Fine,” I said. “See you then.”

He came around two, and strolled in, looking as though nothing had happened since the day we’d met. I thanked him immediately.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just tell me what you want to know.”

“It’s Jordon,” I said. “Jonny, he has me more mixed up than I ever thought I could be.”

“Jordon,” Jonny said. “Yeah, he can be pretty mystifying.”

“I don’t have anyone else to turn to,” I said. “And I’m starting to feel a little desperate.”

“I love Jordon,” Jonny said. “But I wouldn’t recommend any girl get involved with him.”

“I am involved,” I said. “Very involved. But I don’t know whether to believe him, and I have to. He insists, and if I don’t believe he’s telling the truth, it’s going to be hard for me to fake it. If I decide to fake it. So I need your help.”

“Sure,” he said, with the same quality of gentleness I’d seen in Jordon. I wondered where they’d gotten it from.

“Is it really as bad as he makes it out to be,” I asked. “Did your parents really keep him incommunicado last week?”

“Yeah,” Jonny said. “Jordon came in late one night, so they punished him.”

“But that’s sick,” I said.

“Yeah,” Jonny said. “It’s sick. It’s not as sick as some of the other things they’ve done, but it’s sick enough.”

“Don’t they realize it?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I’m not even sure Jordon realizes it. Look Paula, my parents have been punishing Jordon for as long as I can remember. And Jordon’s been cruel and destructive for just as long. I don’t know which came first. I don’t think it matters any more. Maybe Jordon was a rotten little kid, and my parents overreacted. Maybe he was an okay little kid and they destroyed him. I don’t know. But it’s gotten to the point where Jordon can’t do anything right. My parents don’t know how to react when he does something well. He never did well in school. He’d get one good grade every year, and fail everything else, or close to it, but the good grade was in a different subject each year. I mean, that implies he has a brain. But not to my parents. When he did so well on his boards, my parents weren’t thrilled. First of all, they made it very clear to both of us that I was to do better.

“That’s great,” I said. “Did you?”

“Yeah,” he said, and looked embarrassed. “Jordon scored low 700s. I scored high 700s.”

“Hasn’t Jordon ever done anything better than you?”

“He’s better at getting girls.”

“Okay,” I said. “But doing so well must have made Jordon feel good.”

“No,” Jonny said. “As a matter of fact, it was right after the scores came in that Jordon slugged the headmaster. The same week. I don’t think he could handle being a success.”

“Jonny, if Jordon’s so messed up, why do I care so much about him?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know you at all. I do know girls respond very strongly to Jordon. They always have. Nice, smart, intelligent, well-behaved girls. Girls who would never do the things he does. I’m not sure why, but it’s always been that way.”

“I’m glad to know I’m not alone,” I said.

“You’re certainly not,” Jonny said. “He’s always found girls, even when he was at all boys’ schools. He’s amazing that way. My parents don’t give him any credit for it; it’s not exactly a normal talent, but it sure is one. Beyond that, there’s nothing Jordon does really well. His grades in school this year were good enough so they didn’t kick him out, but not any better than that. He doesn’t write, he doesn’t play an instrument, he doesn’t draw or dance or sing. He doesn’t read very much either, or care about what’s happening. He wastes more time than anybody I know.”

“Did you really get his Christmas presents one year?” I asked.

Jonny smiled. “I don’t remember it, but I can believe it,” he said. “My parents were always pulling cute stunts like that. My grandmother actually had the gall to prefer Jordon to me. The only person I think who ever really loved Jordon, with the possible exception of me. My mother’s mother. Jordon was the first boy in the family in years, I guess. In any event Granny showered him with presents and hugs and kisses, until my parents insisted she do as much for me. I needed more love like a hole in the head. I wasn’t even jealous; that’s how secure I was. I was glad someone liked Jordon; it made me feel better. Anyway, Mother and Granny got into a real battle over it, and Mother told her unless she treated us equally, she wasn’t welcome in the house. Granny never came back. It’s that kind of family. She sends Jordon birthday cards with money in them, but that’s it.”

“I’ve heard of sick families,” I said, “unhealthy, cruel, miserable families, but you’re definitely in the running for number one lousy.”

“Yeah,” Jonny said. “It’s a problem for me to see, though. I know my parents did all these things, but most of my childhood Jordon was away at different schools, and when it was just me, my parents were pretty normal. They spoiled me, I guess, but not as much as you might think. I was always well behaved, so they never had to punish me …”

“Lucky you,” I muttered.

“I know,” he said. “Why do you think I was so well behaved? Jordon would come back for vacations, and he’d tell me all about the trouble he was in. He was always doing something wrong and he always got caught. I hope he doesn’t do something dishonest for a living. They’d catch him in two weeks.”

“He wants to get caught,” I said.

“Of course he wants to get caught,” Jonny said. “I realized that when I was ten. That was when I decided I wanted to be a mathematician. Everybody else I knew who got into trouble got very upset. They tried to keep it quiet; they didn’t want their parents to know. Jordon so obviously did. He used to practically tell them about how he was cheating, or hitting kids, or teachers, or destroying things, whatever he was into that year. There I was age ten, saying ‘My God, that’s the most pathological thing I’ve ever seen.’ So I decided to stick to numbers. They were less confusing. They did what you wanted them to. If I have to be on a desert island with someone, I hope it’s a computer. People bother me.”

“So you’re scared too.”

“I suppose so,” Jonny said. “Although I don’t see anything wrong with preferring computers.”

“Oh, Jonny,” I said. “Don’t your parents know what they’ve done?”

“No,” he said. “That’s the one thing I’m absolutely sure of. They think they were given two sons, one a saint, the other a demon, and that all things considered they’ve done pretty well with the demon. The fact that he’s on probation and not in jail seems a great accomplishment to them. Their friends, the rest of the family except for Granny, feel the same way. Jordon’s just no good, and you can’t expect anybody who’s no good to act any differently than the way he has. Of course he’ll get into trouble, get expelled, get arrested. And of course he does.”

“Why doesn’t he break out?” I asked. “Escape?”

“He can’t until the probation ends;” Jonny said. “And after that, I don’t know if he’ll be able to. I worry about Jordon, about what he’s going to do to me later on. Because I can’t punish him. I guess I don’t love him enough. As far as I’m concerned, Jordon’s an adult, and whatever mistakes he makes are his concern. That’s it.”

“You make me feel so healthy,” I said. “I guess I should thank you for that.”

“Anytime,” Jonny said. “Maybe we Stapletons ought to go on TV. Make America feel better. It’s a thought.”

“Don’t tell Jordon you were here,” I said. “He’s kind of forbidden me to see you.”

“Paula,” Jonny said, and looked at me very sadly, “I’ve known Jordon a lot longer than you have. I wasn’t going to tell him.”