Sins of Innocence (21 page)

Ginny smiled at Susan. “Doc says he’s ready for you now,” she said, as sweetly as she could manage. Then added, “He’s a nice man, don’t you think?”

Susan looked a little puzzled. “If you say so,” she said, then walked past Ginny into the music room.

Susan

She had pretty much decided to keep the baby. Susan sat on her bed, peeling wax drippings off the sides of an old Chianti bottle. She and David drank Chianti wine only so they could have the straw-basketed green bottles for burning candles. She didn’t like the bitter, dark wine; but she loved David.

She had tried to find him. If only he had said he’d joined the army, or the navy, or something. But, no. David’s only words had been “I’ve enlisted. I’m going over.” Even Alan, David’s college roommate, seemed to have vanished. But it was time to make a decision. Susan figured it could take months—maybe years—to locate David. But the baby inside her wasn’t going to wait. God. If only she hadn’t been so stupid. If only she’d had the courage to have been honest with herself. And with him. She rubbed a smooth piece of wax between her fingers.

If she kept the baby, Susan knew her parents would be mortified; in fact, they would most likely never speak to her again. She could handle that okay … maybe. Just maybe.

She thought about getting a job. Put off grad school. Support herself, support the baby. Without Daddy’s money. She could use part of the inheritance from her grandfather to get a place in the Village—it was probably the only area she’d be able to afford—and find someone to watch the baby while she worked.

But the Village was getting crazy. Drugs were everywhere. Inexpensive apartments were hard to come by. Most of them were now crash pads, crammed with a dozen or more kids in one room on any given night; darkly lit with black walls covered with Day-Glo posters; floors strewn with stained blue-and-gray ticked mattresses, the stale, sickish scent of pot embedded in them. Not that she had anything against pot—God, she and David had certainly done their share—but it was different in the Village. It was rank. It was—immoral.

And not a place to raise a baby.

She stared at her long fingers, now coated with flecks of wax. If only she had told David. If only she hadn’t let her stupid upbringing get in the way. Inside, she hated all the things her parents stood for. She hated their plastic existence.

“War is good for the economy,” her father had tried to reason with her.

“It won’t affect us,” her mother had added. “You’re not a boy. Even if you were, Daddy’s friends could get you out. David Siegel got deferred. So did Nathan Cage’s son. This ‘war’ simply isn’t a problem for us, for our kind.”

Values. Morals. It was okay for the “poor boys” to go off and fight and die for our country. It was not okay for the rich boys, the boys whose families had the right kind of influence.

It was okay for other people’s kids to do something wrong. It was not okay for someone like Susan to be pregnant.

Susan grasped the Chianti bottle and hurled it across the room. The green glass was so thick, the bottle didn’t even break. It fell to the floor with a thud.

There was a knock on the door.

“Susan, are you okay?”

God, it was Ginny again. For the past week that girl had been hovering around her, as if she were trying to befriend Susan or something.

“I’ve got a headache, Ginny. I’ll see you at dinner.”

“I was on my way upstairs to see you, and I heard a noise. Is everything all right?”

Susan sighed. “Come in.”

The door opened and Ginny stepped in, her miniskirt looking shorter than ever as her long shirt hung over it. Lady-in-waiting, Susan thought. What a joke.

“Oh, wow. Neat room,” Ginny said. Susan had covered the slanted ceiling of the attic room with antiwar posters, mixed with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. “We Shall Overcome.” “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” The small desk was heaped with books and papers; more were scattered around the floor. On the nightstand a pungent cone of incense smoldered. “You really dig this antiwar shit, don’t you?”

Susan sighed again.

Ginny studied the posters. “ ‘Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?’ Hey, that’s cool.”

“It’s not ‘cool,’ Ginny, it’s the truth. The Tet Offensive was the beginning of the end—thank God—for Johnson.”

“The
what
offensive? Tit? What’s so offensive about tits?” Ginny snickered.

Susan swung her legs off the bed and sat facing Ginny. “Did you come up here for a reason?”

Ginny cleared the desk chair of some books and sat down. “Well, now that you mention it, yeah. I can’t handle this shit. You know, this baby shit.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Anyway, I haven’t got time for it. I’ve got to get to L.A. If I ever want to be an actress, I’ve got to get out there now, before I get too old. I mean, like by the time this kid is born, I’ll be almost eighteen. That’s too fucking old.”

“So what do you want from me? If I knew a way you could get the baby born faster, believe me, Ginny, I’d be doing it myself.”

“Acid. You got any acid?”

“What?”

“Come on, Susan. You’re cool. You must have some dope. All you hippies have dope.”

Susan laughed. “Sorry, Ginny, no sale. I did a little pot, sure, and smoked a little hash.” She frowned. She didn’t tell Ginny that, in fact, she was stoned on hash the night she got pregnant. “But I only did it to raise my consciousness level. Not to freak out. And definitely not to destroy my body.”

“I don’t want to destroy my body. Only this asshole baby’s.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Look, Susan, some of us don’t have it as easy as others.”

Susan saw the coldness in Ginny’s black-lined eyes. She saw no fear, only coldness. It was frightening.

“What makes you think this is easy for any of us?”

“Ha!” Ginny laughed, tossing back the teased mass of her hair. “Queenie here challenges me. Queenie here, whose Daddy foots all the bills, has probably never had to worry about where her next meal was coming from. Or
if
there would be a next meal.”

“You’re here at Larchwood, Ginny. Someone must be paying your bill. This isn’t exactly skid row.”

“Look. I didn’t come up here to get personal. I was only looking for a little dope. I thought you might be able to help me out.” She stood up and marched to the door. “Guess I figured you wrong. You’re as much of an asshole as the rest of them.”

“Ginny,” Susan called after her.

“Fuck you, bitch,” Ginny said, and she slammed the door behind her.

At dinner that evening Ginny never looked in Susan’s direction. Susan passed on Mrs. Hines’s strawberry pie—the doctor had told her that with her “large” frame, she might have a tendency to put on too much weight now—excused
herself from the table, and went into the living room to watch the news.

An aerial shot showed tens of thousands of people, clustered together in Washington, ready to march against poverty and discrimination. “Resurrection City” it was called: The nation’s capital was littered with shantylike structures that housed the masses—the people, Americans, who sought only the freedom to live in freedom.

She stretched out on the uncomfortable Victorian sofa and stared at the television. She rested her head against the hand-crocheted covering on the arm, ignoring the stickpin that pressed against her temple. She studied the people, aching to be there. Then the commentator cut from the grainy film of the crowds to a still photo of an American flag. Over that was superimposed the number of Vietnam casualties for the week: twenty-three dead; eighty-seven wounded. David. God. Where was David?

P.J. stuck her head in the doorway. “Thought I’d walk into town. You interested?”

Susan pushed the hair back from her face. “Sure, why not? I’ve had about all I can take of this.”

They went outside, lit cigarettes, and started down the long driveway. Walking beside someone who was only a few inches shorter than herself helped put Susan at ease. She always felt like such an Amazon.

“We haven’t really had the chance to get to know each other yet,” P.J. said.

“No,” Susan answered. “No, I’ve been kind of busy.”

“You don’t like us much, do you?”

Susan thought a moment. “It’s not any of you, it’s this place. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like I’m old enough to be everyone’s mother.” Susan laughed.

“So what are you doing here? I mean, you’re out of college and everything.”

“If you mean why didn’t I get married and have the baby or something, well, it’s a long story. Somehow, though, my parents seem to be playing major roles in it.”

“Tell me about it!” P.J. said sarcastically. “I’m the shame of the family.”

“Well, that’s probably the one thing we all do have in common here.”

“ ‘These things don’t happen to nice girls like you. Not to families like us.’ Did you get much of that?”

“My mother wanted me to have an abortion,” Susan said.

“God. That’s the second time I’ve heard that word around here.” P.J. shook her head. “I must have been living in the Dark Ages in western Massachusetts. ‘Abortion’ isn’t a word that’s discussed. Kind of like ‘cancer’ or”—she paused, then smiled—“ ‘diarrhea.’ ”

Susan laughed. “Well, I can at least give you credit for having a sense of humor about this.”

“Yeah. Ha-ha.” P.J. laughed, too, but to Susan, it sounded sullen.

“But you went to school in Boston, didn’t you? Didn’t you know anyone there who knew about abortions?”

“I may have gone to school in Boston, Susan, but I’m from a small town. Some things don’t change overnight.”

They walked along the narrow road, beside the low stone walls, past wooded areas and open meadows. Though it was nearly seven, the sun was still warm on this late June evening. Susan surveyed the rambling estates and elegant homes—signatures of an upper-class existence. It was not unlike Westchester, she thought. It was, however, she supposed, very different from Vietnam.

She studied the girl beside her. Though Susan suspected P.J. was more than a little naive, she was, of all the girls, closest to Susan in age. And, God, at least she had been to college. At least maybe P.J. was bright. Maybe Susan could trust her. Maybe P.J. would understand her confusion.

Susan flicked her cigarette into the road. “I’ve been thinking about keeping my baby,” she said.

P.J. raised her eyebrows. “Does the baby’s father know?”

“No.” She felt a pressure grow in her head. “He’s somewhere on the way to Vietnam.” Susan didn’t miss the look of surprise on P.J.’s face.

“Vietnam! I thought you were an antiwar activist.”

“I am. He is. Or was. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Maybe it’s dumb to think about having a baby in this world. It stinks.” She tossed back her long black mane. “I seem to be stuck somewhere between morals and values.”

“Morals and values—they’re not the same thing?”

“Not where I come from. ‘Morals’ are the kinds of things that you choose to rule your life with. Like deciding if you’re going to war. ‘Values’ are the kinds of things that rule your life for you. Like the importance of having a country-club membership. It’s an establishment thing—it’s all plastic, all phony. With no rhyme or reason for any of it.”

P.J. frowned. “I still don’t get it.”

Susan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

They walked on in silence. Maybe P.J. didn’t understand what she was trying to say, but at least she listened.

As they rounded the corner onto Main Street, P.J. said, “Susan, would you mind if we stopped in the hardware store?”

“No. What do you need?”

“Not
what. Who
. A guy I met the other night. Peter. He works there.”

Now it was Susan’s turn to be surprised. “A
guy
?”

“Please don’t tell the others,” P.J. asked.

“Not to worry.” As they walked toward the store, Susan figured P.J. would tell her the rest in time.

Outside the glass doors P.J. touched Susan’s arm. “I had a friend killed in Vietnam. A guy I was in high school with,” P.J. said quietly.

“Bummer.”

“Yeah.”

“When”

“During the Tet.”

Susan chuckled. “Sorry. Believe me, I’m not one to laugh at that. But our sweet, innocent Ginny thinks the Tet Offensive has something to do with tits.”

“You’re kidding. Is she for real?”

“She’s trouble. No doubt about it. We’d all be better
off if we stayed the hell away from her.” Susan shook her head. “Really, though, that’s too bad about your friend.”

“The girls from school started writing to some marines. To show their support. I wanted to, but Frank wouldn’t let me.”

“Frank?”

“Boyfriend. Ex. Baby’s father.”

“He was right, P.J. No sense having the troops think we actually believe what they’re doing is right.”

“I think the only reason Frank was in school was to avoid the draft.”

“It doesn’t make him a bad person.”

“I think it does. It’s not our guys’ fault they’re over there. I’m sure they don’t want to be.”

Susan pulled a hand from the pocket of her jeans. “Everyone except David.” She opened the door of the hardware store, and a small bell tinkled. P.J. and Susan stepped inside.

P.J
.

He was with a customer, showing the man a chain saw. P.J. stood at the end of the aisle, waiting for Peter to finish.

“Think I’ll go browse through the nuts and bolts,” Susan said. “By the looks of him, you’d prefer to be alone.”

P.J. smiled and watched as Susan walked to the next aisle and disappeared behind the racks of sandpaper. She turned back to Peter, wondering what in the hell she was doing here. The night at the Dew-Drop-Inn she had told Peter she was staying with an elderly aunt who had taken sick. Though P.J. was unaccustomed to having to lie to hold the attention of a guy, this was different. She wasn’t about to tell him she was pregnant.

She looked down at the “granny” dress she wore: It was unbleached muslin and gathered just beneath the bustline. Best of all, the style cleverly concealed her expanding stomach.

“I can’t believe it.” His voice was clear, with a little bit of country twang.

P.J. looked up into his magnificent turquoise eyes, which were framed with the darkest, thickest lashes she’d ever seen. “Hi,” she said. He was as good-looking under the harsh lights of the neon tubes as he had been in the dimly lit bar.