Adam read the telegram from the commission house and he settled back in his chair and a strange enduring smile came on his face and did not go away.
Lee kept away from him to let him get a grip on himself. The boys heard the reaction in Salinas. Adam was a fool. These know-it-all dreamers always got into trouble. Businessmen congratulated themselves on their foresight in keeping out of it. It took experience to be a businessman. People who inherited their money always got into trouble. And if you wanted any proof—just look at how Adam had run his ranch. A fool and his money were soon parted. Maybe that would teach him a lesson. And he had doubled the output of the ice company.
Will Hamilton recalled that he had not only argued against it but had foretold in detail what would happen. He did not feel pleasure, but what could you do when a man wouldn’t take advice from a sound businessman? And, God knows, Will had plenty of experience with fly-by-night ideas. In a roundabout way it was recalled that Sam Hamilton had been a fool too. And as for Tom Hamilton—he had been just crazy.
When Lee felt that enough time had passed he did not beat around the bush. He sat directly in front of Adam to get and to keep his attention.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“All right.”
“You aren’t going to crawl back in your hole, are you?”
“What makes you think that?” Adam asked.
“Well, you have the look on your face you used to wear. And you’ve got that sleepwalker light in your eyes. Does this hurt your feelings?”
“No,” said Adam. “The only thing I was wondering about was whether I’m wiped out.”
“Not quite,” said Lee. “You have about nine thousand dollars left and the ranch.”
“There’s a two-thousand-dollar bill for garbage disposal,” said Adam.
“That’s before the nine thousand.”
“I owe quite a bit for the new ice machinery.”
“That’s paid.”
“I have nine thousand?”
“And the ranch,” said Lee. “Maybe you can sell the ice plant.”
Adam’s face tightened up and lost the dazed smile. “I still believe it will work,” he said. “It was a whole lot of accidents. I’m going to keep the ice plant. Cold does preserve things. Besides, the plant makes some money. Maybe I can figure something out.”
“Try not to figure something that costs money,” said Lee. “I would hate to leave my gas stove.”
3
The twins felt Adam’s failure very deeply. They were fifteen years old and they had known so long that they were sons of a wealthy man that the feeling was hard to lose. If only the affair had not been a kind of carnival it would not have been so bad. They remembered the big placards on the freight cars with horror. If the businessmen made fun of Adam, the high-school group was much more cruel. Overnight it became the thing to refer to the boys as “Aron and Cal Lettuce,” or simply as “Lettuce-head.”
Aron discussed his problem with Abra. “It’s going to make a big difference,” he told her.
Abra had grown to be a beautiful girl. Her breasts were rising with the leaven of her years, and her face had the calm and warmth of beauty. She had gone beyond prettiness. She was strong and sure and feminine.
She looked at his worried face and asked, “Why is it going to make a difference?”
“Well, one thing, I think we’re poor.”
“You would have worked anyway.”
“You know I want to go to college.”
“You still can. I’ll help you. Did your father lose all his money?”
“I don’t know. That’s what they say.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Abra asked.
“Why, everybody. And maybe your father and mother won’t want you to marry me.”
“Then I won’t tell them about it,” said Abra,
“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“Yes,” she said, “I’m pretty sure of myself. Will you kiss me?”
“Right here? Right in the street?”
“Why not?”
“Everybody’d see.”
“I want them to,” said Abra.
Aron said, “No. I don’t like to make things public like that.”
She stepped around in front of him and stopped him. “You look here, mister. You kiss me now.”
“Why?”
She said slowly, “So everybody will know that I’m Mrs. Lettuce-head.”
He gave her a quick embarrassed peck and then forced her beside him again. “Maybe I ought to call it off myself,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m not good enough for you now. I’m just another poor kid. You think I haven’t seen the difference in your father?”
“You’re just crazy,” Abra said. And she frowned a little because she had seen the difference in her father too.
They went into Bell’s candy store and sat at a table. The rage was celery tonic that year. The year before it had been root-beer ice-cream sodas.
Abra stirred bubbles delicately with her straw and thought how her father had changed since the lettuce failure. He had said to her, “Don’t you think it would be wise to see someone else for a change?”
“But I’m engaged to Aron.”
“Engaged!” he snorted at her. “Since when do children get engaged? You’d better look around a little. There are other fish in the sea.”
And she remembered that recently there had been references to suitability of families and once a hint that some people couldn’t keep a scandal hidden forever. This had happened only when Adam was reputed to have lost all of his money.”
She leaned across the table. “You know what we could really do is so simple it will make you laugh.”
“What?”
“We could run your father’s ranch. My father says it’s beautiful land.”
“No,” Aron said quickly.
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to be a farmer and you’re not going to b? a farmer’s wife.”
“I’m going to be Aron’s wife, no matter what he is.”
“I’m not going to give up college,” he said.
“I’ll help you,” Abra said again.
“Where would you get the money?”
“Steal it,” she said.
“I want to get out of this town,” he said. “Everybody’s sneering at me. I can’t stand it here.”
“They’ll forget it pretty soon.”
“No, they won’t either. I don’t want to stay two years more to finish high school.”
“Do you want to go away from me, Aron?”
“No. Oh, damn it, why did he have to mess with things he doesn’t know about?”
Abra reproved him. “Don’t you blame your father. If it had worked everybody’d been bowing to him.”
“Well, it didn’t work. He sure fixed me. I can’t hold up my head. By God! I hate him.”
Abra said sternly, “Aron! You stop talking like that!”
“How do I know he didn’t lie about my mother?”
Abra’s face reddened with anger. “You ought to be spanked,” she said. “If it wasn’t in front of everybody I’d spank you myself.” She looked at his beautiful face, twisted now with rage and frustration, and suddenly she changed her tactics. “Why don’t you ask about your mother? Just come right out and ask him.”
“I can’t, I promised you.”
“You only promised not to say what I told you.”
“Well, if I asked him he’d want to know where I heard.”
“All right,” she cried, “you’re a spoiled baby! I let you out of your promise. Go ahead and ask him.”
“I don’t know if I will or not.”
“Sometimes I want to kill you,” she said. “But Aron—I do love you so. I do love you so.” There was giggling from the stools in front of the soda fountain. Their voices had risen and they were overheard by their peers. Aron blushed and tears of anger started in his eyes. He ran out of the store and plunged away up the street.
Abra calmly picked up her purse and straightened her skirt and brushed it with her hand. She walked calmly over to Mr. Bell and paid for the celery tonics. On her way to the door she stopped by the giggling group. “You let him alone,” she said coldly. She walked on, and a falsetto followed her—”Oh, Aron, I do love you so.”
In the street she broke into a run to try to catch up with Aron, but she couldn’t find him. She called on the telephone. Lee said that Aron had not come home. But Aron was in his bedroom, lapped in resentments—Lee had seen him creep in and close his door behind him.
Abra walked up and down the streets of Salinas, hoping to catch sight of him. She was angry at him, but she was also bewilderingly lonely, Aron hadn’t ever run away from her before. Abra had lost her gift for being alone.
Cal had to learn loneliness. For a very short time he tried to join Abra and Aron, but they didn’t want him. He was jealous and tried to attract the girl to himself and failed.