twenty-one

My mother does not come home until very late on Saturday, so she is still snoozing when Altschuler leaves on Sunday morning. It is the strangest, weirdest good-bye I ever had to say to anybody—somebody I saw every day last week, including Saturday, and will see every day this week. We horse around over some fried eggs I make and talk about Miss Stuart and stuff like that, but I have a new way of looking at Altschuler because of what we did together last night. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ashamed. There was nothing wrong about it, I keep telling myself. We got to talking about all the girls we had made out with. I told him about Mary Lou Gerrity and how I am more or less engaged to her, and that I haven’t made out in New York because of being faithful to her. He told me about some girl named Enid Gerber he made out with at summer camp last year, and they are engaged too. That’s how it happened.

“So I guess I’ll see you on the bus tomorrow,” Altschuler says.

“Sure,” I say.

“What are you going to do this afternoon?”

“I usually hang around with my mother on Sunday,” I say, “if she ever wakes up. She takes me to a movie or something like that.”

“Oh, sure.”

“When do you see your father?” I ask.

“I talk to him a lot on the telephone. Connecticut’s a real drag.”

“Oh, sure.”

He is gone now, so there’s nothing else to do except take out Fred and buy The New York Times when I see that Mother did not bring it home with her last night. I don’t like to do that on Sunday because the paper is so fat. It’s hard to manage both Fred and that big newspaper at the same time. I do all the things I usually do, and I even anticipate Mother’s waking up and make coffee for her. You could call me a regular kitchen hand. But today it is not like before. I mean I feel weird. I want to call up that bastard Altschuler and have a good long chat with him. What about? I don’t know. Do you have to have a reason? So I call him.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He tells me that he is eating more fried eggs because when his mother heard that I made breakfast and the supper last night, she got worried. We both think that is pretty funny, and I say something to show how smart I am, about maybe he will end up crowing like a rooster, especially if they have chicken for dinner today, which I know they will because Altschuler already told me that his mother makes a chicken every Sunday. It’s real dumb conversations like ours which give teenagers such a bad reputation for using the telephone.

“Well, OK,” I say. “I just thought I’d call you up.”

“What are you doing later?” Altschuler asks.

“I don’t know. My mother isn’t awake yet.” Altschuler has the same problem I have, only in reverse. His mother never sleeps. He told me that if she gets three hours’ sleep a night she thinks she’s a regular Rip Van Winkle and wants to know what happened while she was out.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Altschuler says.

“On the bus.” I hang up.

And then I moon around. Today I don’t care about The New York Times, not even the travel section, which I usually read first, or the business section, which I read because the biographies of smart businessmen are interesting and I think that maybe someday I’ll read one about my father and how clever he is as a designer and how he got to be rich because everyone had to start using his doorknobs, or some knives of his, or something. I am glad Mother isn’t awake. It is pleasant to be alone here with Fred, the only living creature I can speak to about Altschuler.

When my mother does wake up, I can tell right away that she won’t be interested in a movie, so I give coffee to her and walk away without more than three or four words.

“What’s the matter with you today?” Mother asks.

“Nothing.”

“Why so quiet?” she says.

“I thought you wanted it that way.”

“Where’s Douglas?”

“He left after breakfast.”

Mother makes a motion to silence me. She tells me about the magic power of sleep. She goes back to her room and closes the door. She sleeps the day away. I am alone with Fred. I decide not to call Altschuler again. Besides, isn’t it his turn to call me?

There’s nothing wrong with Altschuler and me, is there? I know it’s not like making out with a girl. It’s just something that happened. It’s not dirty, or anything like that. It’s all right, isn’t it?