"Three minutes are up, signal when through," the operator broke in.

Larry said: "Well, I'll be coming back in a week or so, Arlene. We'll get together."

"Fine by me. I always wanted to go out with a famous recording star."

"Arlene? You don't by any chance know a guy named Dewey the Deck, do you?"

"Oh!" she said in a very startled way. "Oh wow! Larry!"

"What?"

"Thank God you didn't hang up! I did did see Wayne, just about two days before he went into the hospital. I forgot all about it! Oh, gee!" see Wayne, just about two days before he went into the hospital. I forgot all about it! Oh, gee!"

"Well, what is it?"

"It's an envelope. He said it was for you, but he asked me to keep it in my cash drawer for a week or so, or give it to you if I saw you. He said something like 'He's goddam lucky Dewey the Deck isn't collecting it instead of him.' "

"What's in it?" He switched the phone from one hand to the other.

"Just a minute. I'll see." There was a moment of silence, then ripping paper. Arlene said, "It's a savings account book. First Commercial Bank of California. There's a balance of ... wow! Just over thirteen thousand dollars. If you ask me to go somewhere dutch, I'll brain you."

"You won't have to," he said, grinning. "Thanks, Arlene. Hang on to that for me, now."

"No, I'll throw it down a storm-drain. Asshole."

"It's so good to be loved."

She sighed. "You're too much, Larry. I'll put it in an envelope with both our names on it. Then you can't duck me when you come in."

"I wouldn't do that, sugar."

They hung up and then the operator was there, demanding three more dollars for Ma Bell. Larry, still feeling the wide and foolish grin on his face, plugged it willingly into the slot.

He looked at the change still scattered on the phone booth's shelf, picked out a quarter, and dropped it into the slot. A moment later his mother's phone was ringing. Your first impulse is to share good news, your second is to club someone with it. He thought-no, he believed-that this was entirely the former. He wanted to relieve both of them with the news that he was solvent again.

The smile faded off his lips little by little. The phone was only ringing. Maybe she had decided to go in to work after all. He thought of her flushed, feverish face, and of her coughing and sneezing and saying "Shit!" impatiently into her handkerchief. He didn't think she would have gone in. The truth was, he didn't think she was strong enough to go in.

He hung up and absently removed his quarter from the slot when it clicked back. He went out, jingling the change in his hand. When he saw a cab he hailed it, and as the cab pulled back into the flow of traffic it began to spatter rain.

The door was locked and after knocking two or three times he was sure the apartment was empty. He had rapped loud enough to make someone on the floor above rap back, like an exasperated ghost. But he would have to go in and make sure, and he didn't have a key. He turned to go down the stairs to Mr. Freeman's apartment, and that was when he heard the low groan from behind the door.

There were three different locks on his mother's door, but she was indifferent about using them all in spite of her obsession with the Puerto Ricans. Larry hit the door with his shoulder and it rattled loudly in its frame. He hit it again and the lock gave. The door swung back and banged off the wall.

"Mom?"

That groan again.

The apartment was dim; the day had grown dark very suddenly, and now there was thick thunder and the sound of rain had swelled. The living room window was half open, the white curtains bellying out over the table, then being sucked back through the opening and into the airshaft beyond. There was a glistening wet patch on the floor where the rain had come in.

"Mom, where are you?"

A louder groan. He went through into the kitchen, and thunder rumbled again. He almost tripped over her. She was lying on the floor, half in and half out of her bedroom.

"Mom! Jesus, Mom!"

She tried to roll over at the sound of his voice, but only her head would move, pivoting on the chin, coming to rest on the left cheek. Her breathing was stertorous and clogged with phlegm. But the worst thing, the thing he never forgot, was the way her visible eye rolled up to look at him, like the eye of a hog in a slaughtering pen. Her face was bright with fever.

"Larry?"

"Going to put you on your bed, Mom."

He bent, locking his knees fiercely against the trembling that wanted to start up in them, and got her in his arms. Her housecoat fell open, revealing a wash-faded nightgown and fishbelly-white legs sewn with puffy varicose veins. Her heat was immense. That terrified him. No one could remain so hot and live. Her brains must be frying in her head.

As if to prove this, she said querulously: "Larry, go get your father. He's in the bar."

"Be quiet," he said, distraught. "Just be quiet and go to sleep, Mom."

"He's in the bar with that photographer!" she said shrilly into the palpable afternoon darkness, and thunder cracked viciously outside. Larry's body felt as if it was coated with slowly running slime. A cool breeze was moving through the apartment, coming from the half-open window in the living room. As if in response to it, Alice began to shiver and the flesh of her arms humped up in gooseflesh. Her teeth clicked. Her face was a full moon in the bedroom's semidarkness. Larry scrambled the covers down, put her legs in, and pulled the blankets up to her chin. Still she shivered helplessly, making the top blanket quiver and quake. Her face was dry and sweatless.

"You go tell him I said come outta there!" she cried, and then was silent, except for the heavy bronchial sound of her breathing. she cried, and then was silent, except for the heavy bronchial sound of her breathing.

He went back into the living room, approached the telephone, then detoured around it. He shut the window with a bang and then went back to the phone.

The books were on a shelf underneath the little table it sat on. He looked up the number of Mercy Hospital and dialed it while more thunder cracked outside. A stroke of lightning turned the window he'd just closed into a blue and white X-ray plate. In the bedroom his mother screamed breathlessly, chilling his blood.

The phone rang once, there was a buzzing sound, then a click. A mechanically bright voice said: "This is a recording made at Mercy General Hospital. Right now all of our circuits are busy. If you will hold, your call will be taken as soon as possible. Thank you. This is a recording made at Mercy General Hospital. At the time of your call-"

"We put the mopheads downstairs put the mopheads downstairs!" his mother cried out. Thunder rolled. "Those Puerto Rickies don't know nothing!" nothing!"

"-call will be taken as soon as-"

He thumped the phone down and stood over it, sweating. What kind of goddam hospital was that, where you got a fucking recorded announcement when your mother was dying? What was going on there?

Larry decided to go down and see if Mr. Freeman could watch her while he got over to the hospital. Or should he call a private ambulance? Christ, how come nobody knew about these things when they needed to know about them? Why didn't they teach it in school?

In the bedroom his mother's laborious breathing went on and on.

"I'll be back," he muttered, and went to the door. He was scared, terrified for her, but underneath another voice was saying things like: These things always happen to me. These things always happen to me. And: And: Why did it have to happen after I got the good news? Why did it have to happen after I got the good news? And most despicable of all: And most despicable of all: How bad is this going to screw up my plans? How many things am I going to have to change around? How bad is this going to screw up my plans? How many things am I going to have to change around?

He hated that voice, wished it would die a quick, nasty death, but it just went on and on.

He ran down the stairs to Mr. Freeman's apartment and thunder boomed through the dark clouds. As he reached the first-floor landing the door blew open and a curtain of rain swept in.

CHAPTER 20.

The Harborside was the oldest hotel in Ogunquit. The view was not so good since they had built the new yacht club over on the other side, but on an afternoon like this, when the sky had been poxed with intermittent thunderstorms, the view was good enough.

Frannie had been sitting by the window for almost three hours, trying to write a letter to Grace Duggan, a high school chum who was now going to Smith. It wasn't a confessional letter dealing with her pregnancy or the scene with her mother-writing about those things would do nothing but depress her, and she supposed Grace would hear soon enough from her own sources in town. She had only been trying to write a friendly letter. The bicycle trip Jesse and I took to Rangely in May with Sam Lothrop and Sally Wenscelas. The biology final I lucked out on. Peggy Tate's (another high school friend and mutual aquaintance) new job as a Senate page. The impending marriage of Amy Lauder.

The letter just wouldn't allow itself to be written. The interesting pyrotechnics of the day had played a part-how could you write while pocket thunderstorms kept coming and going over the water? More to the point, none of the news in the letter seemed precisely honest. It had twisted slightly, like a knife in the hand that gives you a superficial cut instead of peeling the potato as you had expected it to do. The bicycle trip had been jolly, but she and Jess were no longer on such jolly terms. She had indeed lucked out on her BY-7 final, but had not been lucky at all on the biology final that really counted. Neither she nor Grace had ever cared all that much for Peggy Tate, and Amy's forthcoming nuptials, in Fran's present state, seemed more like one of those ghastly sick jokes than an occasion of joy. Amy's getting married but I'm having the baby, hah-hah-hah.

Feeling that the letter had to be finished if only so she wouldn't have to wrestle with it anymore, she wrote:

I've got problems of my own, boy do I have problems, but I just don't have the heart to write them all down. Bad enough just having to think about them! But I expect to see you by the Fourth, unless your plans have changed since your last letter. (One letter in six weeks? I was beginning to think someone had chopped your typing fingers off, kid!). When I see you I'll tell you all. I could sure use your advice.

Believe in me and I'll believe in you, Fran

She signed her name with her customary flamboyant/comic scrawl, so it took up half of the remaining white space on the notesheet. Just doing that made her feel more like an imposter than ever. She folded it into the envelope and addressed it and put it against the mirror standing up. Finished business.

There. Now what?

The day was darkening again. She got up and walked restlessly around the room, thinking she ought to go out before it started to rain again, but where was there to go? A movie? She'd seen the only one in town. With Jesse. To Portland to look at clothes? No fun. The only clothes she could look at realistically these days were the ones with the elastic waistbands. Room for two.

She'd had three calls today, the first one good news, the second indifferent, the third bad. She wished they'd come in reverse order. Outside the rain had begun to fall, darkening the marina's pier again. She decided she'd go out and walk and to hell with the impending rain. The fresh air, the summer damp, might make her feel better. She might even stop somewhere and have a glass of beer. Happiness in a bottle. Equilibrium, anyway.

The first call had been from Debbie Smith, in Somersworth. Fran was more than welcome, Debbie said warmly. In fact, she was needed. One of the three girls who had been sharing the apartment had moved out in May, had gotten a job in a warehousing firm as a secretary. She and Rhoda couldn't swing the rent much longer without a third. "And we both come from big families," Debbie said. "Crying babies don't bother us."

Fran said she'd be ready to move in by the first of July, and when she hung up she found warm tears coursing down her cheeks. Relief tears. If she could get away from this town where she had grown up, she thought she would be all right. Away from her mother, away from her father, even. The fact of the baby and her singleness would then assume some sort of sane proportion in her life. A large factor, surely, but not the only one. There was some sort of animal, a bug or a frog, she thought, that swelled up to twice its normal size when it felt threatened. The predator, in theory at least, saw this, got scared, and slunk off. She felt a little like that bug, and it was this whole town, the total environment (gestalt (gestalt was maybe an even better word), that made her feel that way. She knew that nobody was going to make her wear a scarlet letter, but she also knew that for her mind to finish convincing her nerves of that fact, a break with Ogunquit was necessary. When she went out on the street she could feel people, not looking at her, but was maybe an even better word), that made her feel that way. She knew that nobody was going to make her wear a scarlet letter, but she also knew that for her mind to finish convincing her nerves of that fact, a break with Ogunquit was necessary. When she went out on the street she could feel people, not looking at her, but getting getting ready ready to look at her. The year-round residents, of course, not the summer people. The year-round residents always had to have someone to look at-a tosspot, a welfare slacker, The Kid from a Good Family who had been picked up shoplifting in Portland or Old Orchard Beach... or the girl with the levitating belly. to look at her. The year-round residents, of course, not the summer people. The year-round residents always had to have someone to look at-a tosspot, a welfare slacker, The Kid from a Good Family who had been picked up shoplifting in Portland or Old Orchard Beach... or the girl with the levitating belly.

The second call, the so-so one, had been from Jess Rider. He had called from Portland and he had tried the house first. Luckily, he had gotten Peter, who gave him Fran's telephone number at the Harborside with no editorial comment.

Still, almost the first thing he'd said was: "You got a lot of static at home, huh?"

"Well, I got some," she said cautiously, not wanting to go into it. That would make them conspirators of a kind.

"Your mother?"

"Why do you say that?"

"She looks like the type that might freak out. It's something in the eyes, Frannie. It says if you shoot my sacred cows, I'll shoot yours."

She was silent.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to offend you."

"You didn't," she said. His description was actually quite apt-surface-apt anyway-but she was still trying to get over the surprise of that verb, offend. offend. It was a strange word to hear from him. Maybe there's a postulate here, she thought. When your lover begins to talk about "offending" you, he's not your lover anymore. It was a strange word to hear from him. Maybe there's a postulate here, she thought. When your lover begins to talk about "offending" you, he's not your lover anymore.

"Frannie, the offer still stands. If you say yes, I can get a couple of rings and be there this afternoon."

On your bike, she thought, and almost giggled. A giggle would be a horrible, unnecessary thing to do to him, and she covered the phone for a second just to be sure it wasn't going to escape. She had done more weeping and giggling in the last six days than she had done since she was fifteen and starting to date. she thought, and almost giggled. A giggle would be a horrible, unnecessary thing to do to him, and she covered the phone for a second just to be sure it wasn't going to escape. She had done more weeping and giggling in the last six days than she had done since she was fifteen and starting to date.

"No, Jess," she said, and her voice was quite calm.

"I mean it!" he said with startling vehemence, as if he had seen her struggling with laughter.

"I know you do," she said. "But I'm not ready to get married. I know that about me, Jess. It has nothing to do with you."

"What about the baby?"

"I'm going to have it."

"And give it up?"

"I haven't decided."

For a moment he was silent and she could hear other voices in other rooms. They had their own problems, she supposed. Baby, the world is a daytime drama. We love our lives, and so we look for the guiding light as we search for tomorrow.

"I wonder about that baby," Jesse said finally. She really doubted if he did, but it was maybe the only thing he could have said that would cut her. It did.

"Jess-"

"So where are you going?" he asked briskly. "You can't stay at the Harborside all summer. If you need a place, I can look around in Portland. "

"I've got a place."

"Where, or am I not supposed to ask?"

"You're not supposed to," she said, and bit her tongue for not finding a more diplomatic way of saying it.

"Oh," he said. His voice was queerly flat. Finally he said cautiously, "Can I ask you something and not piss you off, Frannie? Because I really want to know. It's not a rhetorical question or anything."

"You can ask," she agreed warily. Mentally she did gird herself not to be pissed off, because when Jess prefaced something like that, it was usually just before he came out with some hideous and totally unaware piece of chauvinism.

"Don't I have any rights in this at all?" Jess asked. "Can't I share the responsibility and the decision?"

For a moment she was was pissed off, and then the feeling was gone. Jess was just being Jess, trying to protect his image of himself to himself, the way all thinking people do so they can get to sleep at night. She had always liked him for his intelligence, but in a situation like this, intelligence could be a bore. People like Jess-and herself, too-had been taught all their lives that the good thing to do was commit and be active. Sometimes you had to hurt yourself-and badly-to find out it could be better to lie back in the tall weeds and procrastinate. His toils were kind, but they were still toils. He didn't want to let her get away. pissed off, and then the feeling was gone. Jess was just being Jess, trying to protect his image of himself to himself, the way all thinking people do so they can get to sleep at night. She had always liked him for his intelligence, but in a situation like this, intelligence could be a bore. People like Jess-and herself, too-had been taught all their lives that the good thing to do was commit and be active. Sometimes you had to hurt yourself-and badly-to find out it could be better to lie back in the tall weeds and procrastinate. His toils were kind, but they were still toils. He didn't want to let her get away.

"Jesse," she said, "neither of us wanted this baby. We agreed on the pill so the baby wouldn't happen. You don't have any responsibility."

"But-"

"No, Jess," she said, quite firmly.