Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/161



IT WAS DUSK WHEN THE BOY AND girl got in the Buick convertible. He watched her get in and saw her face a moment, looking out at him through the glassless car door. She had tried to talk but he had remained silent. The golden bronze had vanished. The flesh had become pale and sunless and the hands smooth and soft. She was Joy Clay again, a barbarous creature who had tricked him.

She candidly studied his face as he closed the car door, waiting for some word, just one word would have been plenty. If he would have just called her by her name.

He knew this and was embarrassed because he could not speak. Every look she spoke with her eyes was an alien way of life. A life of pointed breasts and blood-red lips. Again he felt sick. Trembling, he walked to the other side of the car and silently slid behind the wheel. Automatically he started the car and backed down the driveway to the street.

He heard a dog bark. It sounded mournful and dismal. The same sound was within him, and he bit his lip hard on turning into the street. The street lights had just turned on and layers like transparent plastic, deepening red, swept across the sky, touching the dark shadows that lay close to the outlying horizon before him. A gentle breeze swayed the bushy magnolia trees, lingered on the rose colored flowers of the crepe myrtle; the fragrance of the mixed blossoms filling the air about him with a deadly stink.

He had promised himself it would never happen again … Why had he been so weak … why … A pounding in his head dizzied him and a sweet sickly fragrance clung to his clothes. It was not "Passion Rose." 151