Collected Stories of Carson McCullers by Carson Mccullers Page B

She felt her pulse quiver at her finger tips like a bee on a flower—vibrate against the cool glass.
    "How does the day after tomorrow strike you?"
    She felt her breath shorten to hot, smothered gasps. She nodded.
    From the house came the sound of Mick's and Howard's voices. They seemed to be arguing about the belts of their bathing suits. Mick's words merged into a scream. And then the sounds hushed.
    That was why she was almost crying. She thought about water, looking down into great jade swirls of it, feeling the coolness of it on her hot limbs, splashing through it with long, effortless strokes. Cool water—the color of the sky.
    "Oh, I do feel so dirty—"
    Mrs. Lane held the shears poised. Her eyebrows quivered upward over the white sprays of blossoms she held. "Dirty?"
    "Yes—yes. I haven't been in a bathtub for—for three months. I'm sick of being just sponged—stingily—"
    Her mother crouched over to pick up a scrap of a candy wrapper from the grass, looked at it stupidly for a moment, and let it drop to the grass again.
    "I want to go swimming—feel all the cool water. It isn't fair—isn't fair that I can't."
    "Hush," said Mrs. Lane with testy sibilance. "Hush, Constance. You don't have to worry over nonsense."
    "And my hair—" She lifted her hand to the oily knot that bumped out from the nape of her neck. "Not washed with water in—months—nasty awful hair that's going to run me wild. I can stand all the pleurisy and drains and t.b. but—"
    Mrs. Lane was holding the flowers so tightly that they curled limply into each other as though ashamed. "Hush," she repeated hollowly. "This isn't necessary."
    The sky burned brightly—blue jet flames. Choking and murderous to air.
    "Maybe if it were just cut off short—"
    The garden shears snipped shut slowly. "Here—if you want me to—I guess I could clip it. Do you really want it short?"
    She turned her head to one side and feebly lifted one hand to tug at the bronze hairpins. "Yes—real short. Cut it all off."
    Dank brown, the heavy hair hung several inches below the pillow. Hesitantly Mrs. Lane bent over and grasped a handful of it. The blades, blinding bright in the sun, began to shear through it slowly.
    Mick appeared suddenly from behind the spirea bushes. Naked, except for her swimming trunks, her plump little chest gleamed silky white in the sun. Just above her round child's stomach were scolloped two soft lines of plumpness. "Mother! Are you giving
her
a haircut?"
    Mrs. Lane held the dissevered hair gingerly, staring at it for a moment with her strained face. "Nice job," she said brightly. "No little fuzzes around your neck, 1 hope."
    "No," said Constance, looking at her little sister.
    The child held out an open hand. "Give it to me, Mother. I can stuff it into the cutest little pillow for King. I can—"
    "Don't dare let her touch the filthy stuff," said Constance between he: teeth. Her hand fingered the stiff, loose fringes around her neck, then sank tiredly to pluck at the grass.
    Mrs. Lane crouched over and, moving the white flowers from the newspaper where she had laid them, wrapped up the hair and left the bundle lying on the ground behind the invalid's chair.
    "I'll take it when I go in—"
    The bees droned on in the hot stillness. The shade had grown blacker, and the little shadows that had fluttered by the side of the oak trees were still. Constance pushed the blanket down to her knees. "Have you told Papa about my going so soon?"
    "Yes, I telephoned him."
    "To Mountain Heights?" asked Mick, balancing herself on one bare leg and then the other.
    "Yes, Mick."
    "Mother, isn't that where you went to see Unca Charlie?"
    "Yes."
    "Is that where he sent us the cactus candy from—a long time ago?"
    Lines, fine and grey as the web of a spider, cut through the pale skin around Mrs. Lane's mouth and between her eyes. "No, Mick. Mountain Heights is just the other side of Atlanta. That was