Part 18 (1/2)

My mother goes to the telephone and begins to dial. My father, I notice, looks irritated.

”d.i.c.k?” my mother says into the receiver. ”This is Helen-from next door?” An intimate smile curls her lips, and she turns to the wall. ”I hear you have the name cards, for the party. Are there any blank ones left?” She laughs. ”I knew I could count on you. N.D. Nicole Diver. See you soon.” She hangs up the phone and turns to face us. ”Well,” she says, ”you kids coming?”

”Nicole Diver?” my father says. ”Nicole Diver? G.o.d, that's rich.”

”Who's she?” I ask.

My mother smiles but doesn't answer me. She picks up her purse and drops her lipstick into it.

”Who's Nicole Diver?” I turn to my father. ”Dad?”

”Oh,” he says absently, ”she's just one of Fitzgerald's beauties.” He pats his pants pocket, and I hear the jingling of his keys.

THE BOREDOM OF being a child ignored by a group of adults. Ingrid and I skulk around the hors d'oeuvres table, spearing Swedish meatb.a.l.l.s with toothpicks, using our bare fingers to pluck from their red sauce several pigs-in-a-blanket each. We sit on straight-backed chairs against the wall, and while Ingrid plays with her hair, braiding one lock and then another, I study the grown-ups in an effort to place my parents on a scale of normalcy.

It takes no time at all to see that it was my mother's goal to set herself apart from the other wives. They wear full-skirted dresses of ordinary colors and modest lengths; but the difference reaches way beyond my mother's yellow dress. The other women talk to each other, but my mother talks only to men-to groups of them, four or five or six at a time. And she has a way of scanning the room while she talks-at first I think she's looking for us, but she keeps doing it long after I've had eye contact with her. I realize, in the way you can realize old, familiar knowledge, that she's looking around to see if people are looking at her: that she wants them to be. I start to feel tense for her-I'll feel tense for beautiful, hungry people all my life-and I force my attention to my father.

About him, I cannot be so clear. He's wearing a summer suit and a tie, like all of the men except for d.i.c.k Traeger, our neighbor, and one or two others, who wear dark, open-necked s.h.i.+rts under their jackets. I'm happy to see that he's having a good time; he's making the rounds, taking people drinks as if this place were his home. But something else about him: his cheerfulness seems to depend on a kind of wall he's built around my mother, to keep her from coming into his line of vision.

Ingrid hits my leg. ”Let's go to the courtyard,” she says. ”This is stupid.”

Reluctantly, I stand up and follow her out of the room. She hasn't unbraided her hair, and sticking up from her head are two tiny braids that aren't coming undone by themselves.

It's seven o'clock on a Sunday three weeks before the start of cla.s.ses, and the campus is deserted. When we get to our courtyard we head for the empty niches and climb into them-Ingrid's favorite thing to do when we're here alone. We sit facing each other across the arcade.

”You should see your hair,” I say.

Ingrid touches the top of her head and encounters the braids; she makes quick work of disa.s.sembling them. ”Look at that man,” she says.

I lean forward and look: sitting on the edge of the fountain is a thin man with stringy shoulder-length brown hair. ”So-he's not bothering you.”

”I think something's wrong with him.”

I look again. He's hunched over unhappily, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands: his feet are bare. He looks up and sees us looking at him; instantly he stands and heads our way. ”Great, Ingrid,” I say.

He stops when he's just a few yards away. He looks from me to Ingrid, then back at me. ”What are you guys doing?” he says. There appears to be something wrong with his teeth.

”Just sitting,” Ingrid says.

”Our parents are just over there,” I add, waving in the direction we came from.

”You look like statues,” he says. ”What're your names? Mine's Bug.”

”Your name is Bug?” Ingrid says.

”I'll bet yours isn't any better.”

”It's Ingrid.”

”You win.”

She smiles. ”Bug must be your nickname.”

He turns to me. ”So what're you, mute?”

I shake my head.

”Oh, yeah,” he says. ”Your parents are just over there.”

I look at Ingrid and try to send a signal: stop talking to him. But she either doesn't get it or ignores it. ”They're at a c.o.c.ktail party,” she says.

”How chomming,” Bug says. ”Is there perchance food at this affair?”

”Why?” Ingrid says. ”Are you hungry? We could get you some.”

”No, we couldn't. We should be going, Ing.” I mean to jump out of the niche, but somehow I don't move.

”Are you?” Ingrid says.

Bug reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stone. He studies it carefully, looking at both sides-it's almost as if he were memorizing it-then he puts it back. ”I can't remember what it feels like not to be.”

”Are you starving?” Ingrid asks him.

”Well, I guess the answer is compared to who?” He runs a hand through his greasy hair. ”I'm not in danger of dying today.”

”When was the last time you ate?” she says.

He looks at me, and I see that his face is truly gaunt. I decide that he's probably telling the truth, but still, I want us gone.

”Friday,” he says. ”I had some doughnuts.”

”Today's Sunday,” Ingrid says.

”What are you doing here?” I say. ”Are you a student?” He laughs, and now I do jump down from my niche. ”Ingrid,” I say.

She ignores me. ”How old are you?” she asks him.

”Ingrid, Ingrid-so many questions.” He moves a little closer to her. ”It's my turn. What's on your s.h.i.+rt?” He points at Ingrid's chest-at the breast pocket of her camp s.h.i.+rt, where I know it says ”Pine Hill Camp” in navy embroidery.

”Now, Ingrid,” I say. ”We'll get in trouble.”

”It's my camp s.h.i.+rt,” she says. ”I'm going to get you some food-stay right here, OK?”

She jumps down and Bug goes over and boosts himself into her place. ”It's still warm,” he says, and he gives us a queasy grey smile.

As soon as we're out of his sight we start running. ”You're so stupid,” I say to Ingrid, but then I look at her and see that she's begun to cry. ”What?” I say. ”What?”

”He's starving.”

I try to pat her shoulder, but running seems more important.