Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy

something deeply unsettling all right about the way he looked at her. She had so much wanted to be fancied, it seemed a cruel blow to think that if it ever happened it might only be by someone as awful as Sean Walsh.
    “Good morning, ladies.” He made an exaggerated bow. There was an insult in his voice, a sneer that he hadn’t intended them to notice. Other people had called them “ladies,” even that very morning and had done so without any offense. It was a way of acknowledging that they had left school and would shortly start a more grown-up life. When they had been in the chemist’s buying shampoo, Mr. Kennedy had asked what he could do for the two young ladies and they had been pleased. Paccy Moore had said they were two fine ladies when they had gone to have heels put on Benny’s good shoes. But with Sean Walsh it was different.
    “Hallo Sean.” Benny’s voice was lackluster.
    “Surveying the Metropolis, I see,” he said loftily. He always spoke slightly disparagingly of Knockglen, even though the place he came from himself was smaller and even less like a metropolis. Benny felt a violent surge of annoyance.
    “Well, you’re a free agent,” she said suddenly. “If you don’t like Knockglen you could always go somewhere else.”
    “Did I say I didn’t like it?” His eyes were narrowerthan ever, almost slits. He had gauged this wrong, he must not allow her to report his having slighted the place. “I was only making a pleasant remark comparing this place to the big city. Meaning that you’ll have no time for us here at all soon.”
    That had been the wrong thing too.
    “I’ll have little chance of forgetting all about Knockglen considering I’ll be coming home every night,” said Benny glumly.
    “And we wouldn’t want to anyway,” Eve said with her chin stuck out. Sean Walsh would never know how often she and Eve bemoaned their fate living in such a small town which had the worst characteristic any town could have: It was actually within striking distance of Dublin.
    Sean hardly ever let his glance fall on Eve, for she held no interest for him. All his remarks were directed to Benny. “Your father is so proud of you, there’s hardly a customer that he hasn’t told about your great success.”
    Benny hated his smile and his knowing ways. He must know how much she hated being told this, reminded about how she was the apple of their eye, and the center of simple boastful conversation. And if he knew, why did he tell her and annoy her still further? If he did have designs on her, and a plan to marry Mr. Eddie Hogan’s daughter and thereby marry into the business, then why was he saying all the things that would irritate and upset her?
    Perhaps he thought that her own wishes would hardly be considered in the matter. That the biddable daughter of the house would give in on this as she had on everything else.
    Benny realized she must fight Sean Walsh. “Does he tell everyone I’m going to College?” she asked, with a smile of pleasure on her face.
    “Only subject of conversation.” Sean was smug to be the source of information but somehow disconcerted that Benny didn’t get embarrassed as he had thought she would.
    Benny turned to Eve. “Aren’t I lucky?”
    Eve understood. “Oh, spoiled rotten,” she agreed.
    They didn’t laugh until they were out of his sight. They had to walk down the long straight street past Shea’s pub with its sour smell of drink coming out onto the street from behind its dark windows, past Birdie Mac’s sweetshop where they had spent so much time choosing from jars all their school life. Across the road to the butcher’s where they looked in the window to see back at the reflection of Hogan’s Outfitters and realize that Sean Walsh had gone back inside to the empire that would one day be his.
    Only then could they let themselves go and laugh properly.
    Mr. Flood, of Flood’s Quality Meat Killed On The Premises, didn’t appreciate their